tvbe september 2015

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

A diamond year for ITV

Up Periscope: is now-casting the future of live?

IBC2015 thought leadership showcase

Audio forum: sounding out the expertsPhotos by: ITV/REX Shutterstock

As ITV turns 60, we take a nostalgic walk down memory lane

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TVBEurope 3September 2015 www.tvbeurope.com

This year’s IBC will be a poignant event for

all of us here at TVBEurope, as we prepare

to bid farewell to one of our own. This will

be the fi nal issue where Steve Connolly’s name

will grace our magazine credits, as he prepares

to make the short trip down to Fleet Street to

join our colleagues at IBC to become their

new head of sales. I think it’s fair to say that

what IBC is inheriting goes far beyond the

obvious talent, diligence, and professionalism

that Steve will bring to the table: they are

inheriting a true gentleman.

Steve was sat on the opposite side of the

boardroom table when I fi rst set foot inside the

offi ces here at NewBay Media (Intent Media, as

it was then). He was the person who introduced

me to the TVBEurope brand, to the people I

would be working with, and to the industry I

would be entering. He was the person who

opened my eyes to the nuances of the business,

and has been a guiding hand for the duration

of my time in this wonderful marketplace. I

can quite honestly say that beyond the clear

opportunity he was presenting to me with the

editorship of TVBEurope, the main reason I

accepted was because of the man offering me

the job. I believed in him, his vision, and trusted

wholeheartedly his leadership. That he has also

become a great friend is an honour. Yet, while I

lament his moving on, I must also congratulate

him for an exceptional stint here with TVBEurope,

and all our affi liated brands. After a decade of

service, he deserves an immense amount

of credit, and I wish him the best of luck in

his new career with IBC. Thankfully, that means

that he is not leaving us completely.

I’d just like to fi nish by thanking Steve

for his peerless management, his constant

encouragement, and ultimately for giving me this

fabulous opportunity. Fare thee well my friend,

you will be sorely missed.

James McKeownExecutive Editor

Welcome

Our loss is IBC’s gainEDITORIAL

Executive Editor - James [email protected] - Melanie [email protected] Staff Writer - Holly [email protected] - Chris Forrester, David Fox, David Davies, Dick Hobbs, John Ive, George Jarrett, Adrian Pennington, Philip Stevens, Catherine WrightHead of Digital - Tim FrostHuman Resources & Offi ce Manager - Lianne DaveyHead of Design, Hertford - Kelly Sambridge

Senior Production Executive - Alistair TaylorPublisher - Steve [email protected]+44 207 354 6000Sales Manager - Ben [email protected]+44 207 354 6000Account Manager - Richard [email protected]+44 207 354 6000Managing Director - Mark Burton

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

Free [email protected] Tel +44 1580 883848

TVBEurope is published 12 times a year by NewBay Media, 1st Floor, Suncourt House, 18-26 Essex Road, London N1 8LN, England +44 207 354 6002

NewBay Media is a member of the Periodical Publishers Association

© NewBay Media 2015. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the copyright owners. TVBEurope is mailed to qualifi ed persons residing on the European continent. Subscription is free.

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

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

TVBEurope bids farewell to its long-serving publisher

In this issue4 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015

10 Workfl owUp Periscope! Adrian Pennington explores whether social services like Twitter’s Periscope are wresting control of ‘live’ away from TV

08 Opinion and AnalysisSteve Plunkett, CTO of Ericsson Broadcast and Media Services, asks whether IP is really ready for primetime broadcast

36IBC PreviewPart two of our thought leadership feature gauges the mood of the industry as we head into another IBC week in Amsterdam

SupplementPreventing churn 101: why video quality, and the ability to analyse it, matters. In association with IneoQuest

Audio forumIn the second audio forum of the year, Philip Stevens talks to several foremost sources about issues facing the sound side of broadcasting 55

ITV at 60As ITV celebrates its diamond anniversary, Philip Stevens takes a nostalgic look back at the early days of commercial television in the UK 46

www.tvbeurope.com

September 2015

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Opinion and Analysis6 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015

Today’s OTT viewers can be both fi ckle and

hard to please. Faced with the wealth

of choice now on offer, it’s no surprise

that they’re not afraid to vote with their feet

if a service doesn’t meet with their exacting

standards. Providers are now in a constant battle

to optimise the viewing experience and retain

consumers’ attention.

Our TV experiences can have the effect

of pushing us along the entire spectrum of

emotions: from the sense of comfort of watching

Saturday Kitchen, to the joy of seeing our

favourite football team winning, through to our

suspense at the latest episode of Homeland.

There’s a sense of stagecraft about it, and as

such, breaking the fourth wall for the viewer –

taking them away from that experience –

is a cardinal sin for providers wanting

to optimise engagement. The game has

changed. Consumers have grown accustomed

to the high quality offered by linear TV –

uninterrupted periods of viewing in the crispest

defi nition – and now, with the explosive growth of

OTT, we don’t want to make compromises when

it comes to our online viewing experiences either.

This perception was borne out in a recent survey

we conducted. We asked 400 UK consumers

about their attitudes toward watching TV

delivered over the internet. Their responses were

enlightening, showing that today’s viewer is

looking for a TV-like experience, and will quickly

abandon their show if the spell is broken

and they are forced to remember that ‘this

is the web’.

Large screens still ruleWhile the amount of video consumed on mobile

devices has exploded in the last two to three

years, three out of every four OTT TV viewers

surveyed continue to use the larger screen of

a PC to watch content. The OTT industry is not

short of commentators predicting that soon

we will barely watch TV on anything other than

smartphones, yet, while mobile is certainly

Don’t break the spellOTT providers, here’s why you shouldn’t break the spell for viewers, writes Dr Hui Zhang, CEO and co-founder, Conviva

‘It’s clearer now than ever: to build a thriving business, service providers must

absolutely emulate traditional TV’


Opinion and Analysis

important and a rapidly growing medium,

consumers still currently use the tried-and-true PC

screen more than any other device.

Looks matterWhen asked about the most important factor

in choosing an OTT video service, consumers

showed considerable discernment. Fully a third

of respondents made it clear that they wanted

to be sure they were getting (at least) a TV-

quality experience. Unsurprisingly, the breadth

of the content library was a very close second,

but the results hint at a future in which even the

best shows will quickly lose audience if delivered

poorly. With the amount of money being

dedicated to content development, losing any

viewers has long-term implications, not only for

the monetisation of these valuable properties,

but for the long-term health of content

production firms.

Put up or shut upWhile 41 per cent of viewers suggest that they

don’t currently subscribe to a service, it’s clear

that once consumers have selected a service,

they must be persuaded to stick with it. We found

that the most important factor influencing the

consumer’s decision to keep or cancel an OTT

subscription is the breadth of the content library:

three out of ten subscribers look at this as the key

reason to stay or churn.

Above all, don’t break the fourth wallWhen services break the spell with slow start

times, inferior picture resolution, or excessive

interruptions, viewers are reminded that they’re

watching internet-delivered video, and quickly

move on to the next thing. They want to lean

back and enjoy as though they are watching

traditional TV, and will lose interest as soon as the

illusion evaporates.

Consumers define the quality of their

experience evenly across video start times,

interruptions during the stream, and picture

resolution. They are also unforgiving: three out

of ten will abandon a poor quality experience

immediately – regardless of the length of the

video. Just 16 per cent of viewers will muddle

their way through a sub-par short form piece.

Consumers are flocking to OTT video, and six

out of ten of our respondents are ready to pay

for the privilege. However, they expect to be

able to watch their content on large screens,

and have no qualms about abandoning a

disappointing experience in short order. The

implications for providers – both in terms of

subscription retention, and content monetisation

– are significant, and require attention. Viewers

who are reminded that the experience they’re

engaged in is ‘only the internet’ – due to poor

picture quality or constant stream interruptions –

have the spell broken, and are taken away from

the experience. It’s clearer now

than ever: to build a thriving business,

service providers must absolutely emulate

traditional television. You must provide

a broadcast quality experience, or risk

losing paying customers.

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Opinion and Analysiswww.tvbeurope.com September 2015

Alongside the talk of 4K, HDR and wider

colour gamuts at this year’s IBC, there will

be plenty of discussion about another

new entrant to our broadcast technology stack:

IP. This interloper, invented a mere 40 years

ago, seems destined to sweep aside our old

favourites such as SDI as the universal transport

protocol within broadcast facilities. But is it really

something we need and when can we expect

to be able to use it? Let’s look at the ‘why’,

‘where’, ‘how’ and ‘when’ of IP in a professional

broadcast environment.

Why?There is a sense of inevitability about the arrival

and use of IP in broadcasting, but it is important

to understand why we might want to use it. The

reasons are many and varied but can probably

be summarised as follows.

CostIP typically sits on top of Ethernet, and the

economics of Ethernet in terms of cost per bit

are becoming increasingly attractive due to its

near ubiquitous deployment in all major industries

and rapidly increasing bit rates. With 1Gbps port

speeds now the entry level, 10Gbps becoming

mainstream and rate increases up to 1Tbps

expected over the next five years, the ability

to carry professional media over Ethernet/IP is

not just becoming viable but necessary. This is

particularly the case as we introduce UHD into

our production workflows, with the associated

increase in bandwidth for both file and live-

based media flows.

FlexibilityIP is a fundamental building block of

virtualisation. The hypervisors and containers

that underpin the ‘cloud’ (both public and

private), require IP for transport and control

purposes. If you want to embrace the software-

defined, IT-centric, model of systems design (and

you should), then you have to use and really

understand IP. You can’t plug an SDI cable into

a virtual machine and you will need to use many

of those to build the dynamic programmable

broadcast facility of the future.

InsightBecause IP is a two-way, packet-based

communication medium, you can collect highly

granular data on machine-to-machine and

people-to-machine interactions and media

exchange. This data provides much greater

insight into how content is distributed and

consumed as well as the networked elements

that form a broadcast environment. We have

seen the application of such information already

in IPTV and OTT to deliver personalised services

and advertising, and as IP pervades the rest of

the broadcast ecosystem we will gain greater

insight and potential business value as a result.

Where?The implementation of IP in broadcast is, for

good reason, happening at a different pace

in different domains. In some areas, such as

on-demand and OTT delivery, it is not only the

foundation technology but the media industry

which is at the cutting edge of designing and

deploying sophisticated distributed computing

environments. In other domains, such as within

the studio and playout facility, where real-time

synchronous baseband video prevails, it is still

a nascent technology with many outstanding

challenges to be addressed before

mainstream deployment.

On-demandThe challenges involved in designing, building

and operating very large scale IP-based on-

demand video platforms are such that media

organisations are in many cases pushing forward

IP related protocol development, software

engineering best practice and new architectural

styles. Anyone who suggests that broadcasting

and media are laggards in their adoption of IP

and distributed software systems need just look at

this side of our industry. This is a world built on fast

developing internet technologies, of continuous

delivery (releasing new software builds rapidly

and autonomously), infrastructure-as-code,

microservices and so on.

Netflix are probably the flag bearer in

this regard with their entirely cloud based,

microservices architected, globally distributed

video platform that consumes over 30 per cent

of US internet bandwidth in peak hours. They are

also seeding the rest of the industry (and other

industries) with knowledge and freely available

software (they have over 50 open source

projects active).

LinearAlmost the opposite extreme from the

groundbreaking use of IP in the OTT world is

traditional linear broadcasting. There are of

course very good reasons for this. In this domain

we transport and mix high bandwidth real-time

video and audio across synchronised devices

with extremely high availability expectations.

We achieve this through the use of dedicated,

industry specific, hardware centric, fixed

configuration, people intensive facilities that

are slow to deploy and change. But they work,

relatively flawlessly.

If we are to use IP in the real-time broadcast

domain, and take advantage of all the good

things outlined in the Why section previously, then

we must meet those same exacting standards

and requirements. Something which until recently

did not seem technically or operationally

feasible. That is changing though and with

increased industry focus a momentum is building

to overcome the challenges.

How?There are a couple of ways in which we, as an

industry, can approach this. We can take the

architectures, protocols, products and ways of

working from today’s broadcast facilities and

try to port them across to IP/IT infrastructure.

Or we can pause, take the time to really

understand what IP and IT technologies can

Is IP really ready for primetime in broadcast?By Steve Plunkett, CTO broadcast and media services, Ericsson

8 TVBEuropeurope

offer, and build a radically different future

architecture that is more closely aligned to

the pure software ecosystems of the OTT world

that we will ultimately converge with. With

those two different choices facing us, we have

decided to… do both. Much of our industry

focus today is on taking the software out of the

hardware packages from previous incarnations

and delivering them as software only products,

deployable on virtual machines. We then

take our familiar transport protocol, SDI, and

encapsulate the whole thing inside IP. Within

no time we will be a software based, IP-centric

industry. Sort of.

We can vew this as a two-phase transition – in

Phase One we do largely lift and shift our current

environment and place it on top of an IP/IT base.

This is no small feat in itself and will deliver a good

deal more deployment flexibility and cost saving

opportunities. We will also learn a great deal in

the process about what IP can and cannot do

well, resolving issues as we go. Then in Phase Two,

which we can start now in parallel, we begin to

deconstruct media to its component parts (video

frames, audio samples, metadata etc) and

re-think how to compose more dynamically, the

content itself and the infrastructure that serves it.

Who knows what we will end up with, but it will

be quite different from what we have today

and in Phase One.

When?This is the big question of course. When can we

realistically introduce and take advantage of IP

across the real-time broadcast domain? Based

on real world experience, we are already some

way towards achieving the benefits of what I

described as Phase One above. However, we

are certainly not there yet (despite what you

might read at IBC). The more radical future, one

that really adopts an IP first architecture, is still

in its infancy but also gaining traction through

initiatives such as the EBU/SMPTE/VSF Joint

Taskforce on Networked Media and others.

The bottom line is that moving forward

requires effort, investigation, standardisation,

collaboration, experimentation, innovation and

skills investment across the entire industry. When

is also subjective – when will your organisation

(or you) feel ready and willing to embrace

the change that is IP. The steps required at

an industry level are also necessary at an

organisational and individual level.

I think we will look quite similar in two years

and radically different in ten (remember, at

the beginning of 2005 there was no YouTube,

iPlayer, Netflix streaming, Twitter or many of the

things that make up today’s TV experience).

The transition between those two points should

be very exciting and rewarding for those that

embrace it.

Steve Plunkett took part in our recent IP

video webinar in association with Quantel and

Snell. Vist www.TVBEurope.com/webinars to

watch the on-demand video.


Opinion and Analysis

’There is a sense of inevitability about the arrival and use of IP in broadcasting, but it is important to understand why we

might want to use it’

Outside broadcast vehicles have

changed radically over the past few

years. The move to HD throughout

the world, coupled with the introduction of

broadcast-quality flat panel displays, stimulated

a new generation of builds toward the end of the

last decade. Most major broadcast organisations

and independent operators took advantage of

the buoyant TV market, which was hit less hard

by recession as many others, to upgrade their

fleets with new vans and new technology. The

introduction of 4K transmission and an ever-

increasing demand for more cameras at live

events has further stimulated ongoing growth in

the outside broadcast market.

A desire to utilise the internal and highly

restricted space within a truck to the absolute

greatest efficiency and level of flexibility has

encouraged system integrators and designers

to seek and deploy new techniques and

technologies. KVM matrix switches are rapidly

proving that they can offer significant benefits

in this field and are being incorporated into

many new OB vehicle builds, as well as into fixed

broadcast studios and editing facilities.

The primary role of the switch is to connect all

available operator workstations to all resources

within the truck: performing for data- and file-

based systems the same type of function as the

video router for video feeds. It allows freedom

of access from any console to any device,

which in turn means that every operator position

is completely application-independent. The

broadcast workflow is streamlined: production

staff can be situated anywhere within the vehicle

and can change their working application

instantly. A consequent benefit is that the total

number, and hence real estate, of monitors and

keyboards is reduced to the minimum.

This flexibility provides several advantages.

Production staff can set workstations to their

preferred configuration, whilst becoming less

reliant upon the actual physical equipment

configuration. Resources are more easily

shared: files can be accessed directly from the

source without the need for comprehensive

network configuration and associated and

time-consuming downloading and distribution of

content. Direct access to servers helps eliminate

the proliferation of multiple copies of content,

which can lead to confusion and part-finished

work being transmitted.

Connection between source devices and

operator consoles is fast, and artefact- and

delay-free. In operation, there is no perceivable

delay in user response, so operators are not

normally even aware of the switch and are

presented with images that are visually accurate.

Switching is instantaneous and can be achieved

through several methods: in-band switching

where the user selects the source by keyboard

hot-keys; through an administrator GUI, which is

useful in setting up configurations using stored

layouts for rapid and efficient changeover of

layout as the vehicle changes jobs; and by

integration with a standard broadcast control

system, and there are several examples of

KVM switch deployments using VSM and KSC

Commander controllers.

A recent introduction has been the universal

IO (UNI-IO) module that enables parallel

switching of keyboard, video and mouse signals

along with the associated HD-SDI stream. This is

invaluable in setting up editing stations where

both types of signal need to be provided to the

editor together.

In many trucks, broadcast equipment is

located at a distance from the user workstations.

Extended interconnection is necessary and

with today’s high bandwidth, this is becoming a

problem for standard DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort

data cables of limited transmission capability.

KVM switches incorporate signal extension

and bring an added dimension of operational

flexibility and efficiency that should be

considered at the start of any new build.

A further advantage is that trucks can be

equipped to suit each job. Videohouse OB14

employs a Draco tera 32-port matrix switch to

great effect: equipment is mounted on sliding

trays that are accessible from outside the vehicle

and the truck is loaded with just the equipment

needed for each outing. It makes for greater

flexibility and allows equipment to be shared

amongst the fleet thereby reducing the overall

stock level of expensive devices.

IHSE’s Draco tera range spans a wide range of

output ports from eight, right up to 576, so there is

a solution for every fixed and mobile installation.

Cat X and fibre are interchangeable and can be

mixed on the same chassis, and a commitment

to supporting new picture resolutions and formats

means that the solution is future-proof: it can

change and expand as the truck itself evolves.

The use of KVM in OB vansOpinion and Analysis

10 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015

KVM matrix switches are becoming essential in OB vans to provide unlimited and highly flexible access to facilities within the vehicle. Switches of different sizes have been installed in many new builds, writes Enno Littman, managing director of IHSE GmbH

Videohouse OB14 employs a Draco tera 32-port matrix switch to great effect

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Eastern promise

The Hungarian commercial television channel

TV2 (250 permanent employees and the

same amount of freelancers) has been

operating since 1997, providing a large variety of

programming. It was owned by ProSiebenSat.1

Media AG until early 2014 when it was sold to

two investors. It is aired throughout Hungary. The

TV2 Group comprises of TV2 and its three cable

channels, SuperTV2, FEM3 and PRO4. Like its

competitors, the group depends on localised

programmes and magazines.

While visiting the studio facilities in Budapest,

the broadcast engineer Dániel Löczi provided

me with a brief overview of the installed and

used equipment as well as the incorporated

studios and workflows behind it. Similar to RTL

Klub, which we covered in August’s issue, TV2

has a huge amount of localised production,

which is generated by external companies as

well as internally on its Budapest premises. The

operation does not have ENG or OB trucks but

does boast an SNG vehicle with SD equipment, to

be upgraded in the future. When there is a need

for such services, external resources are hired-in.

Currently, IP technology is used instead, which

is very reliable, inexpensive and well-suited

to news production.

The channel’s first on-air programme was

broadcast on 4 October, 1997. At that time, the

internal technology was SDI (studios, post

Workflow12 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015

Part two of Reinhard Wagner’s insight into the Hungarian broadcast industry looks at the workflows and operations of commercial channel, TV2

TV2 first starting

broadcasting in 1997


Workflow

production, master control) with the broadcast

output to cable operators in PAL analogue (SD

4:3 aspect ratio, Sony BetaSP VTRs D75 with SDI

output: analogue component signals were

used for monitoring purposes only). In 2001, the

MCR outgoing signal was changed to SDI (fibre

connection: 150Mbps). General investments as

well as standard upgrades are discussed with

the employees of each department, with future

functions and possible enhanced feature sets

explained during the process. There is also a

rule that the final decision is always made by

the technical department. “This is because the

employees of our company are so close that we

talk in advance about things and then it will be

decided,” Löczi says.

“We always hesitate to be early adopters

and appreciate the ability to evaluate software

and equipment in advance. How useful a new

release might be always depends on what

features you use. Therefore, we talk to the

manufacturer and try to get a personalised

version instead of the general latest version.

Each encountered problem is communicated

with the operators, managers and vendors.”

In previous years, the operation was tape-

based and the post production performed

by Interactiv, which was an external service

company at that time. This required a large

amount of manual work by operators. Interactiv

was bought by TV2 and all services integrated

into the production chain within the

Budapest headquarters.

Following this, the existing Avid equipment

needed to be upgraded: Adrenaline DNE was

migrated to a central storage system (Unity) with

12 units. This move opened up the system for more

collaboration and effective workflows. Then, on

1 September 2011, the transmission started in

16:9 at SD resolution. But the last step to HD was

taken on 12 October 2012 with the first on-air

HD production of The Voice.

The whole infrastructure and workflows were

redesigned and enhanced. This resulted in an

ISIS 7000 storage system with 96TB capacity.

A total of 23 editing suites, whereby 17 are

connected to Interplay and six are standalone

clients (Media Composer version 7.0.x with Nitris

DX hardware), get access to the centralised

media, work collaboratively on it and use the

clustered Interplay v3.1 base system (redundant

components: two engine nodes, two Media

Indexers, two LookUp servers). The editing

and production workflows are supported by a

clustered Avid MediaCentral platform (used

for internet content creation, for example) with

10Gbps connections to ISIS. This incorporates 13

base and nine advanced licences.

Services and publications for social media,

including YouTube, are supported by Avid Media

I Distribute, which includes two Interplay Transfer

Managers and Media Services, which offer

transcoding and STP servers.

Support is provided by in-house Avid certified

engineers and the 24/7 support teams of the

vendor and manufacturer. “Looking back, we

have only had one big issue over the past ten

years that lasted a couple of hours. But it was

solved easily and caused no major breakdown“,

explains Attila Szarka from Snitt Studio, a local

Budapest-based Avid vendor and system house.

“Because we don‘t like ‘single point of failure’

components, when we purchase new equipment

we always keep an eye on this aspect,” Löczi

adds. “Freelance editors and journalists have to

pass an internal exam at TV2 to use and work on

the Interplay system: it‘s a must. After that they get

an account. If they fail, they are not allowed to

access the system at all.”

The archive integration comprises a single

Interplay Archive Engine, two Archive/Restore

providers, an SGL Flash-Net integration (v6.4.12),

16TB nearline storage and a deep-archive (IBM

TS3500 tape library with four LTO-6 and four LTO-5

drives: licensed capacity around 2,600 tapes).

An LTO-6 tape can store 2.5TB uncompressed

or 6.25TB compressed data. Both IMX50 and

XDCAMHD are hard to compress, so the average

capacity of tapes is around 3TB. The archiving

workflow starts with the ingest of clips and raw

material into the archive for one year. One copy

stays within the LTO tape library, while a second

copy goes into a library that is explosion and fire

protected. These tapes are ‘offline’, representing

the post production part of the archiving.

After the final editing of material some of it

goes into a deep archive for long-term storage

purposes. After a year, the raw material will be

deleted from the library to open up space again

for future productions. There are intentions to

roll back from LTO-6 to LTO-5 again because of

the problems encountered. There is not much

stored metadata about the raw material, but

the finalised material is archived with a good

metadata set and can be searched using

different search expressions (production, type,

on-air date, archive date, series number,

episode number, etc).

Löczi says: “Our producers and journalists carry

most of the information in their brain – they know

where it is. The situation with news production is

different, because they use metadata which is

searchable and connected to the raw material.”

A Telestream Vantage system integration is

used for transcoding, playout to the internet

and for streaming purposes through Interplay

Web Services and direct connections to

the ISIS system.

TV2’s IT department carries out a lot of

in-house development with regard to solutions

for news archive, MAM and QC. This leads

to a unique environment that is in many ways

more enhanced, especially when it comes

to automated quality control (Baton and

the in-house product) where plenty of

manpower is invested.

Most of the shows and magazines are

produced using a total of four in-house studios.

Because of the centralised storage solution

within that infrastructure, Avid Airspeed 5000

and Airspeed Multi Stream video servers are

incorporated: News (Studio 1: 4ch AMS5000

XDCAMHD); local production (Studio 2:

two 4-channel AMS5000 XDCAMHDs, one

4-channel AMS XDCAMHD); MCR/Studio 3 (fig 6):

shared 4-channel AMS5000 XDCAMHD); and TV

series studio: one 2-channel AMS DNxHD (IsoSync

plus in-house developed for ingest control). All

studios share an iNews Command for

playback control and MediaCentral GUIs

for ingest and retrieval.

Files that arrive at TV2 are always quality

checked while ingested – and during the

handling process, they are recoded into the

internally agreed file format: a slightly adapted

version of XDCAMHD 50. External producers

have to deliver their productions in the

requested TV2 standard which makes it easy

to use and process.

“Today, we are able to use workflows we have

not been able to in the past: with Interplay, for

example, we can create high-res and low-res

material at the same time and use it concurrently

in all connected suites,” Löczi concludes.


Hall 10.A49

when audio mattersnatural sound – in the home

www.jungeraudio.com

Dániel Löczi

#justsaying

@wts_broadcast

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

Workfl ow16 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015

Broadcasters managed to stave off the

early threat from online video by

offering something that YouTube, Netfl ix

or Facebook could not; namely, coverage of

live water cooler events. Indeed, TV viewing of

live and recorded programming has increased

as a result of incorporating interactive,

promotional and companion apps on

smartphones and tablets.

TV’s long-term hold on live may, however,

be numbered or at least forced to adapt once

more. The rollout of 4G networks and Wi-Fi as

utility means the broadcast experience is being

reinvented for mobile. Global events like the

Olympics or the World Cup have reached a

tipping point in consumption on digital platforms

where viewers can access on-demand clips,

scroll backwards during live play and direct their

own multi-camera coverage.

The buzz around live streaming sites and social

media apps is indicative of this trend. The poster

child is Twitter’s Periscope but it is far from alone.

Services like Livestream, Bambuser, Ustream,

SnapChat and Qik pre-dated Periscope, which

launched in March to nip the sudden growth of

rival streamer Meerkat in the bud.

Hang w/, which promotes itself with celebrity

endorsements, is a more established app with

a million users and has just launched on the

Apple Watch. Vine has 40 million registered users

with user-created videos limited to six seconds.

YouNow claims 150,000 broadcasts daily and 100

million user sessions per month.

Users of these sites are predominantly young.

YouNow, for example, says 70 per cent of its

users are under the age of 24. Research by TNS

indicates that over 50 per cent of us engage in

other digital activities while watching television.

When mobile video viewers do watch traditional

TV, 22 per cent are regularly doing so while

watching video simultaneously on their phone,

states an IAB report in June. What’s more,

mobile screens are regularly being used for

streaming longer-form video, the IAB found. “If

broadcasters ignore live streaming platforms

they will be stuck in the one-size-fi ts-all television

model of yesterday, and their products will be

less valuable to the consumer of tomorrow,”

warns Stephen Smith, CTO, cloud technologies,

Imagine Communications. “Content owners,

distributors, and others in the media industry are

faced with three different responses to these new

threats: they can ignore them, fi ght them,

or embrace them.”

Digital marketing fi rm Greenlight suggests

that one in fi ve marketers plan to use live

streaming apps like Periscope in campaigns

this year. Traditional media is not closed to

experimentation. US chat show hosts Ellen

DeGeneres and Jimmy Fallon have incorporated

the new live streaming apps into rehearsals

Up PeriscopeIs now-casting the future of live? Adrian Pennington investigates

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and on-air monologues; Major League Baseball

reporters are live streaming MLB practice

sessions; a ceremony at Twickenham to mark

100 days until the 2015 Rugby World Cup aired

on Periscope. When Snapchat announced its

Discover channel in January, the brands that

dominated its line-up were National Geographic,

CNN, Comedy Central, and Vice.

“Television networks could exploit these new

technologies to deepen their relationships

with viewers and move from digital cable to

smartphones,” reckons Om Malik, partner at

investment firm True Ventures and founder of

online publisher Gigaom.

Social media-centric newsMeerkat and Periscope are ground-breaking in

their use of the real-time Twitter timeline as the

key mechanism to drive tune-in to a live stream.

With both apps you initiate a live broadcast on

your mobile, type in a few words about what

the viewer is about to see, and enable that text

(plus a link) to be shared to Twitter. If a person is

already following you on the app, they also can

get notifications that you are broadcasting

via iOS notifications. The fact that anyone,

anywhere, can now upload footage of a live

event or breaking news story means Twitter via

Periscope could become a 24/7 rolling news

channel. Again, it is the demographic that

matters. Business Wire revealed that 60 per cent

of millennials in the US depend on social media

to keep up-to-date with current affairs, preferring

to visit BuzzFeed and Huffington Post rather than

traditional news outlets. Sky News suggests that

only 18 per cent of 16 to 24 year olds in the UK

trusted mainstream media to provide them with

relevant information. The online-only Vice News

launched last year and has since become the

fastest growing news site on YouTube.

Publishers and newscasters have dabbled.

During the UK general election in May, The

Economist used Meerkat to explain deflation and

Sky News journalist Joe Tidy used Periscope to

get a behind the scenes look at the first leaders’

debate. He also used the chat and ‘love heart’

functions (which rate a broadcast’s popularity)

to encourage 200 viewers to post questions,

comments and reactions.

According to the The Wall Street Journal,

viewership of its live video stream is much

higher than traditional cable networks through

syndication with other sites that repost the

videos. Presence on social media platforms

Facebook, Instagram, Periscope and others

contribute to the increased number of viewers.

One advantage that live streaming has over

conventional broadcast news is the instant

conversational element that viewers can have

with the broadcaster themselves. Each YouNow

broadcast, for example, features a window

where the broadcaster live streams themselves,

and a chat window, where users interact with

broadcasters. “The fact that the camera

faces in as default, not out, suggests how

valuable we believe conversation is to the

success of this format,” says David Pakman,

a partner at YouNow investor Venrock.

The latest iterations of live streaming

services are limited. There’s no search function

in Periscope, for example, and you can only

shoot in portrait mode, making the video

unsuitable for the 16:9 standard screen aspect

ratio (though this development is coming)

The time window to re-watch video could

extend back further than 24 hours when the

content deserves it. A fast-forward function

would help, as would crowd-sourcing live clips

of the feed for broader social distribution. Such

criticism seems churlish for an app developed

barely 18 months ago and now with Twitter’s

R&D team working on it 24/7.

PiracyLive streaming has already gained notoriety for

being hijacked by pirates. HBO issued takedown

notices to Periscope after it was used to

broadcast the fifth-season premiere of Game

of Thrones and courted further controversy

when used as an illegal platform for the

streaming of the Mayweather/Pacquiao

boxing match in May. Anti-piracy specialist

KLipcorp suggests up to 750,000 pirate viewers

watched the fight in Europe alone. The pay-

per-view to watch cost $99 but the fight had

to be delayed 45 minutes while rights holders

like Comcast and HBO caught up with last-

minute orders. In the interim, more people piled

into illegal views of the contest apparently

unconcerned about the sub-HD quality of the

video. When asked about the controversy

surrounding the Mayweather/Pacquiao

fight, Twitter’s then-CEO Dick Costolo likened

Periscope’s effect on live events to that of

fantasy sports on live sports. In his opinion,

it will ‘surround and amplify’ those events, rather

than enable piracy or theft.

The EPL currently restricts Sky and BT from

broadcasting live games to the mobile devices

of fans in stadiums but how can such sports

organisations stop a stadium full of fans with

phones live streaming? The answer is not to treat

Periscope like Napster but to take advantage of

the engagement with the team or sport it brings.

“The industry needs to stop looking at

Periscope as a piracy issue,” declares Smith.

“It’s a business model that we are not taking

full advantage of at the moment. It’s also an

opportunity to reach people who are priced

out of certain events, or do not consume

content because they cannot get it on their

preferred platform. If we can fix these issues, I

would argue that we would fix the majority of

the piracy problem.”

He argues that by augmenting a broadcast

with multiple types of content and viewing

options, media companies can provide a tiered

experience that can be monetised accordingly,

“taking advantage of audiences with different

ideal price points.”

YouNow offers one monetisation model.

Users can buy into Bars, a virtual currency

which they can exchange for a number of

‘thumbs up’, to tip their favourite broadcaster

and help them trend. YouNow takes a cut of

these in-app purchases and says that many

of its ‘broadcasters’ make more revenue

than on YouTube.

Smartphones bring immediacy and

engagement to the traditional ways of

consuming video at a pace which could leave

TV behind. This is the most important implication

of the rise of Periscope, et al. Having made

live streaming by mobile so easy, the nature of

live has changed for good. Live is no longer a

passive experience but a shared one in which

interaction can be in real time.


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Team Brunel, third boat of the Volvo Ocean 65

fleet around Cape Horn

The Volvo Ocean Race is the world’s longest

and most extreme offshore sporting event,

requiring a three-year cycle of planning

and technical decision-making to equip seven

high performance, one-design racing yachts -

the state-of-the-art Volvo Ocean 65.

It is also critical to equip each of 11 stop-

over ports with broadcast technology to cover

arrivals, departures and in-port racing, which

may seem straightforward but is not, particularly

for arrivals. Even though the boats are tracked

throughout their 38,739 nautical-mile journey,

when, where, and from what direction each

boat will actually arrive in port can be something

of a guessing game. They manoeuvre in open

sea to gain an advantage right until the last

moment, which can be diffi cult for those

producing a live show because they don’t know

where their equipment needs to go. As opposed

to in-port races, where you know where and

when the boats will move, with arrivals you never

know precisely when, or from what direction,

they will arrive. It’s not a football pitch, where

you have fi xed, or at least relatively contained,


By Jeff Allen, seniorsolutions manager at Cobham

‘It is critical to equip each of 11 stop-over ports with broadcast technology to cover arrivals, departures and in-port racing’

Broadcast innovationputs wind in the sails

© R

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camera, transmitter, and receive positions. Even

the finish line moves around a lot depending

on the prevailing wind, speed, and tide, which

means that what professionals would call a

‘normal’ RF setup cannot even be attempted.

During the second stopover of the race in

Abu Dhabi around Christmas 2014, it became

clear to the Volvo Ocean Race production

team that they needed a faster, more reliable

way to move video and audio data around,

preferably over a solid IP backbone. Millions of

people in the boatyards, watching on television,

or viewing via the web wanted to see what was

happening no matter when the boats arrived.

Before Abu Dhabi, the team’s ability to

provide content for live arrival shows was pretty

limited in terms of input from cameras because

there was very limited time to set up RF systems,

let alone a full TV infrastructure at each port.

This is when the team started thinking about

how it might further exploit the Cobham IP Mesh

system it was already using. IP Mesh is versatile

and easy to deploy. Multiple transmitters can

be combined into a single IP network to provide

non line of sight coverage with extended range

in environments that are usually too difficult for

most radio-based solutions.

To try out their idea, during the Abu Dhabi

stopover the Volvo broadcast team expanded

IP Mesh in all sorts of places, from masts on

boats once they arrived, to Volvo Ocean Race-

inspired Volvo cars onshore, to helicopters,

chase boats and other strategic locations.

The decision to expand the use of IP Mesh

in Abu Dhabi paid off at the next deployment,

approximately 25 days and 5,400 nautical miles

later, at the next stopover, in Sanya, China.

There, the Volvo Team started using IP Mesh in

earnest. For the first time, the team could easily

include coverage of the arrivals from a wide

range of solid RF links, not just from cameras

and ENG systems on the docks, but RF links on

helicopters, boats, even suitably-equipped race

committee members. All the team had to do

was link any equipped camera to the IP Mesh,

and off they went.

In short, IP Mesh meant that the wireless network,

and those who were using it, didn’t have to

be static. Unlike other wireless systems, IP Mesh

constantly readjusts itself, working out which

mobile nodes are in range and finding the best

route to exchange data between them. The

production team could move with the fleet and

cover it, uninterrupted, with high quality images.

The success in Sanya cascaded to the other

stopovers in the ensuing months. The effect was


Workflow

‘The deployment of IP Mesh meant that the production team could move with the fleet and cover it, uninterrupted, with high quality

images’

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that viewership of subsequent live arrival shows

steadily increased with every stop, at least in

part because they were getting great pictures

to tell their stories.

That experience prompted the Volvo team to

look at even more ways to exploit IP Mesh, and

they came up with a terrifi c idea.

In our industry there are ‘briefcase’

technologies based on 3G and 4G connectivity

that work very well on land in countries with

well-established network coverage. But in

regions with less-established networks, such

systems can struggle, or fall down, especially in

cases where there are massive crowds such as

those at race stopovers, all using their mobile

devices. In some stopovers, some local mobile

phone networks couldn’t cope, so using 3G/4G,

at least reliably, was out of the question.

Volvo came up with an innovative idea and

worked with Cobham to produce a hybrid

backpack, the same sort of backpack that you

can easily fi nd on the broadcast market, but

with an added an IP Mesh unit. Whenever there

was no 3G or 4G coverage, there was always

IP Mesh. It was amazingly effective, especially

from helicopters that were often up to fi ve or

six nautical miles offshore. The combination of

3G, 4G, and IP Mesh could be rapidly deployed

anywhere. A good example of this is stems

from the 24-hour stopover in The Hague, the

penultimate stopover before the race fi nish in

Gothenburg, Sweden.

Broadcast operations covering the live arrivals

and departures at the short stopover in The

Hague were taking place while simultaneous

preparations for the race fi nish in Gothenburg

were in full swing. There was no time to build a

proper RF infrastructure for arrival and departure

shows with the stopovers so close together,

but the hybrid solution with IP Mesh was able

to be derigged at The Hague and re-

established at fi nish line in Gothenburg, all in the

space of about 12 hours. As a result, the Volvo

team was able to provide a live eight-hour show

of the triumphant fi nish, picking up and

covering the fl eet from the coast of Denmark

to Sweden. In this case, broadcast innovation,

as ever, was rewarded with its own

around-the-world win.


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The Volvo broadcast team expanded IP Mesh in all sorts of places, from masts on boats once they arrived, to Volvo Ocean Race-inspired Volvo cars onshore.

IP Mesh meant that the wireless network, and those who were using it, didn’t have to be static

‘Broadcast innovation was rewarded with its own around-the-world win’

Camera operators running up and down

the touchline at football games is, of

course, a very familiar sight. And like

other technologies in the broadcast industry,

these camera systems have evolved into highly

sophisticated units over the recent past.

The latest innovation, known as the SC100,

comes from Presteigne Broadcast Hire. “This new,

packaged RF camera system is especially aimed

at sports coverage and includes a short form

factor Sony camera, a mount to fit a Steadicam

rig, two-way low latency RF circuits, and the

ability to colour match to all popular outside

broadcast cameras for transparent intercutting

with any OB unit,” explains Mike Ransome,

CEO of Presteigne Broadcast Hire. “We have

called this an all-in-one package because

everything required at the camera end,

including the camera block itself, is contained

within one complete outer casing, with no

external components.”

Meeting specific needsThe development of the new system came as

a result of a request from NEP Visions for a new

lightweight camera package that could be

used principally for its Premier League football

coverage in the new season. “NEP Visions

wanted to replace what has been previously

in use with a newer, lighter, smaller system,

including RF control of camera paint and

shading functions and a return video capability.

It also had to colour match to their existing Grass

Valley cameras,” states Ransome. He reveals

that the package took around eight weeks

from conception to the creation of the initial

developmental prototype, then a further nine

months to the final delivery of production models.

Previous similar rigs were proving problematic

because of their size: particularly length, weight,

DC power consumption and lack of return


Philip Stevens examines the latest all-in-one camera package to reach the market

‘The package took around eight weeks from conception to the creation of the

initial developmental prototype, then a further nine months to the final delivery

of production models’

Making light work of touchline coverage

vision. “Our development has resulted in a system

that weighs just 4.5Kg, excluding the lens,” says

Ransome. “Other systems also consist of several

individual items attached around the outside of a

standard camera, with associated external loose

cabling prone to snagging and failure.”

He adds, “The short length and good balance

of the camera allows the operators to balance

the rig more easily and work the camera closer to

their body, enabling finer control and even more

fluid movement.”

Matching other makesAlthough the Presteigne Broadcast Hire package

comes with a Sony camera, the rig is colour matrix

mapped to other popular system cameras, such

as those from Grass Valley. The equipment is

controlled from the appropriate vendor’s OCP,

and simply requires the touch of a button on that

panel to colour match other cameras being used

on the broadcast.

“We have designed the telemetry to provide

the link between the OCP and the camera for

full matching and other control functionality.


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Up to four SC100 cameras can be controlled

simultaneously per telemetry channel.”

The camera package incorporates low

latency (40ms end to end) MPEG-4 video links

using either Cobham or VisLink technology.

“Those technologies are largely similar, both

utilising digital modulation and H264 coding.

Vislink systems have the ability to utilise a wider

RF bandwidth for an increased bit rate, where

picture content requires the additional quality,”

explains Ransome.

Both technologies use a four-antenna diversity

reception system which comes along as

standard with the SC100. However, for complex

jobs an eight-antenna system can be utilised.

The intention is that the primary and reverse

video feeds will operate in licensed bands,

and Presteigne will set frequencies as

appropriate for each project.

“A standard job can be defi ned as one where

the camera only operates in a single, easy to

cover area such as inside a stadium, in front of

a grandstand, a stage, or a similar environment.

Once the area of coverage requires multiple

receive sites, we regard this as more complex.

As such, this is one where the nature of the

job requires additional receive antennae and

receiver infrastructure to achieve the required

areas of coverage. For example, covering

several geographically separate areas such as

inside and outside a stadium and in the players’

tunnel, or to provide wide area coverage, such

as at a golf course.”

During the development stage and alongside

input from NEP Visions, Presteigne Broadcast

Hire consulted and tested with experienced

Steadicam operators. Live testing was carried

out at football grounds including Fulham,

Manchester United, Sheffi eld, Brentford,

Bournemouth and Arsenal.

Continuing developmentRansome continues, “The new SC100 is

another example of Presteigne Broadcast

Hire’s continuing commitment to be at the

forefront of technology and to provide bespoke

solutions to our clients where they have specifi c

requirements unmatched by commercially

available products. As such, this is not the

fi rst ‘all-inclusive’ camera to be created by

Presteigne. In 2009, in order to meet a specifi c

requirement we produced the fi rst UK ‘all-in-one’

camera with a Gigawave system integrated

into a stripped down HD730 camcorder. We also

manufactured the fi rst 3D handheld, broadcast

quality, camera system.”

Presteigne Broadcast Hire now has a large

number of SC100 all-in-one system cameras in

stock and available for rental.


© Vo

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“The new SC100 is another example of Presteigne Broadcast Hire’s

continuing commitment to be at the forefront of technology”

Mike Ransome, Presteigne Broadcast Hire

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

Hall 7 | Stand # B27September 11 - 15, 2015

Amsterdam RAI

Dutch start-up Vigour has

launched a new multiscreen

OTT app with Viacom

International Media Networks

(VIMN) to introduce a new way

of streaming content to any

combination of devices.

The MTV Play app is built on the

Vigour Video platform and allows

viewers to connect to MTV Play

on various screens and switch easily

between devices. The app is mainly

used by those with an MTV mobile

subscription and with access to

MTV content.

Unlike existing interface solutions,

Vigour Video lets viewers intuitively

combine screens through an

application that detects, connects

and interacts with other connected

devices, based on the context of

the user. The Vigour Video platform

surpasses the existing concept of

‘first’ and ‘second’

screen interfaces

and automatically

changes the behaviour

of devices based on

the context of the

user. Video services

that use Vigour

Video are available

through any browser or standalone

apps running on all platforms,

but when you use multiple

devices in your environment your

standalone experience is extended

automatically.

Ramon Duivenvoorden, CEO

of Vigour, explained how his

company first started working

with VIMN by an introduction

through a shared contact. “Your

product is crucial but it’s also about

having a personal connection with

people,” he explains.

“At that time we had a very

disruptive technology but didn’t

have a fully functional product out

in the market. I ran into the then

head of the mobile division and

he fell in love with the product

straightaway. We worked on a

small prototype and we developed

something in six weeks,” he adds.

Vigour’s white label OTT platform

powers a ‘native’ experience

for a wide variety of screens and

devices. When users add a new

device to an existing ‘standalone’

product experience, both devices

automatically ‘merge’ to offer an

enhanced experience. A mobile

phone or tablet adds convenient

content discovery and remote

control when combined with a

big screen, while the big screen

in turn leverages its size to enrich

navigation or playback video

content.

Reinventing content interactionThe holistic approach of Vigour

was crucial for MTV to reinvent

the way young people interact

TVBEverywhere28 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015

Melanie Dayasena-Lowe talks to Vigour CEO Ramon Duivenvoorden about the MTV Play app, which was built on its Vigour Video platform with the aim to change the way people consume content across all platforms

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IBC2015Hall 11E38

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Content everywhereon every screen A mobile phone or tablet adds convenience

to content discovery and acts as a remote control when combined with a big screen

with content. “For network

operators looking to diversify, the

service allows them to move into

multi-platform solutions, whilst

maintaining mobile as the central

hub for their services. The app,

backed by Vigour’s industry-first

multiscreen technology, delivers a

unique proposition for operators,

raising their brand profile as the

network choice for the millennial

demographic,” remarks Robert

Bakish, president and CEO of VIMN.

Duivenvoorden comments on

the exclusive features of the app:

“The unique capability of the

app is that it can bring together

different screens while still offering

a complete paradigm for content

consumption because every screen

can also deliver a standalone

experience. You can still use your

native TV or iPhone app. We add

a completely new layer to that

experience where the different

devices take on different worlds

whenever they get connected

to each other.”

He went on to explain how

the value proposition consists of

two layers. The first is where the

screens of different devices are

connected together to allow

the user to take full advantage

of their combined assets and

hardware. “The second stage is

about adding content layers when

you start having all these screens

available. We made a decision

to initially focus on the creation of

the single environment rather than

overloading it with features.”

When asked how Vigour’s

new platform fits in with the way

content consumption is changing,

Duivenvoorden reinforces

that “content consumption is

heading everywhere on every

screen”. He adds: “There is now

an imperative for a minimum

requirement for broadcasters

because consumption happens

across platforms. We build on top

of that by saying we have this

whole fragmented world of devices

around us and we treat their screen

as an extendable canvas rather

than independent worlds.”

Data canvasGiving the example of Netflix being

available on every screen supports

the trend of ‘content everywhere’.

“We see it as a logical step where

people have these entries into a

digital consumption experience

from different angles so why not

use the data canvas we have

available to create new kinds of

content experiences?”

So what makes Vigour stand

out from its competitors? “On the

product level I believe we have

an industry first. I think the user

experience and multi platform

strategy is very powerful. We have

been exclusively concentrating on

innovation of the user experience

and I think that allows us to deliver

truly disruptive technology.”

Following the company’s

rollout with VIMN, Duivenvoorden

has plans to work with other

broadcasters in the future. “Our

goal is to really change media

consumption across the board.”

TVBEurope 29

TVBEverywhere

Ramon Duivenvoorden: “Using our technology they can use their living room like a control room and experience live events from personalised angles”

“Our goal is to really change media consumption across

the board”Ramon

Duivenvoorden, Vigour

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At Deutsche Telekom, as with much of

the telco industry, we talk a lot about

IoT (the Internet of Things). For those who’ve not

heard of IoT, essentially it will see the majority of

devices, in our homes, cars, offices, factories, our

whole lives, going online. It’s a revolution which

is already underway, but currently for most us, it’s

completely unseen: principally being deployed

in factories, and urban infrastructure. For many

in the broadcast industry, such developments

may seem of close to zero relevance.

However, I would strongly challenge such

a perspective. Over the next few years, IoT

will have a significant impact across multiple

industries, many of which we are not fully

aware of today, and will without doubt impact

the TV industry.

In the future, I don’t believe you will be able

to consider TV production without reference to

IoT. Our homes – and the vast majority of devices

within them – are about to go online, and this will

impact how we view, interact and engage with

our TVs and consume the content.

To put this all into perspective, Gartner predicts

that by 2022 there will be several hundred

connected devices in the more technically

advanced homes (they have even suggested

as many as 500 in some homes). There will be

an immense shift from where we are today.

And this is not some pipe dream: all the major

manufacturers that we are working with have

active plans to move their entire portfolio online,

whether it is a washing machine, shaver, kettle,

toothbrush or heart rate monitor. In the coming

few years, we will see thousands of connected

consumer devices coming to market, not just

video cameras, motion sensors, thermostats,

smoke sensors, smart lights and speaker systems,

www.tvbeurope.com September 2015

Traditional ‘broadcast’ industry to be rocked by IoT

Jon Carter, UK head of business development, connected home, Deutsche Telekom

By embracing OTT technologies and relying on third-party vendors with

strong cloud infrastructure, it is possible to completely change the cost structure

TVBEverywhere30 TVBEurope

but also heating, AC systems, energy meters, etc.

We will no longer just connect a smart TV to

the internet, and consume streamed content

via dual-screen tablet and TV, whilst chatting

on social networks. Our devices might also

start engaging via social networks as well. The

connected home revolution will fundamentally

change the way we interact with our homes in

more ways than we can now predict, and the TV

will be central to this.

Firstly, we believe that the TV screen will be

one of the prime interfaces that consumers will

use to interact with the connected devices

around their home, whether that is via gesture

or voice, and it will no doubt support text to

speech recognition. Some of you may have

TVBEurope 31Septernber 2015 www.tvbeurope.com

TVBEverywhere

‘Gartner predicts that by 2022 there will be several hundred connected devices in the more technically advanced homes’

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Source: Business insider, 2014

come across the Jibo Robot, well that’s just fi rst of

many examples that we expect to see entering

the market, and the TV could be the way we

engage with such ‘entities’.

We expect an increasing amount of content

becoming more personalised, and affected by

the individuals watching, enabled by IoT. It will

no longer just be the advertising that is tailored

based on relatively inaccurate segmentation

analytics. Now, with the customer’s permission,

we will know who is watching that content, and

the content played out will be more linked to

how they’re feeling, what they’re doing and their

interests, based on real-time advanced cloud-

based analytics.

We believe that the set-top box will play an

increasingly important role in gluing everything

together. We believe that it is most likely to be

the hub that many of these connected devices

link to. From next year in Germany, we will be

enabling connected home services via all our

routers; and we’re also in discussions with several

manufacturers who are looking to enhance

their TV offering by adding our software

capabilities into their STB.

With an increasing number of telcos bundling

TV as part of their quad play offering, we believe

that the connected home – and the services

that it will enable – will become the basis for

a fi fth play offering. The connected home will

impact multiple industries, not least TV. As value

shifts between different categories and players,

we all need to be aware of the developments

that are coming.

TVBEverywhere32 TVBEurope

‘The connected home revolution will fundamentally change the way we

interact with our homes in more ways than we can now predict, and the TV will

be central to this’

2015: av.8.59 devices1 2020: >241 to ~2002

IoT WILL HAVE DRAMATIC IMPLICATIONS ON ALL OUR LIVES, ESP. IN OUR HOMES

Gartner predicts there will be >100 connected devices in some homes by 2020

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Source: GartnerSource: Strategy Analytics

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®

The justificationIn 2014, the world hit the mobile tipping point:

the number of users on mobile phones outpaced

those on desktop for the first time. In 2015,

conversations have shifted from mobile’s growth

to how broadcasters and wider business can

best take advantage of it. With customers and

competitors across a wide range of industries

embracing mobile, there is no choice: mobile

must be top of mind. The evidence is all around:

take a look at recent news articles to see the

ways different sectors are making investments

for their mobile users.

Some media and entertainment businesses

are already making progress into mobile with

dedicated services. Earlier this year, Reuters

unveiled a mobile TV service to provide

personalised curated news coverage, and

Sky entered the mobile space with Telefónica

UK offering TV, telephone and broadband

services to its customer base. At the time of

writing, the mobile TV service Sky Go has 5.7

million registered UK users, and allows them to

watch content across multiple devices, with

live channels and content on demand. Even

Facebook wants a piece of the media and

entertainment business with its latest offering to

split advertising revenue with video creators just

like YouTube. Facebook video views increased

fourfold in 2014, which is directly growing

advertising revenue. According to reports, the

company’s total ad revenue in the first quarter

of 2015 was £2.1 billion, and 73 per cent of that

came from mobile ads – up from zero in 2012.

But mobile is being used in other creative ways

to engage with consumers and blurring industry

lines in the process. Pinterest recently announced

it is adding a ‘buy’ button, and Twitter will now

let marketers target consumers based on their

mobile apps.

In the music industry, Apple is challenging the

status quo with Apple Music. In financial services,

companies like Starbucks are seeing huge

success with mobile payments applications,

while Square’s solutions can turn anyone

into an entrepreneur. The mobile takeover is

also affecting industries where you might not

expect mobile to be top of mind. Take furniture

manufacturing: Ikea saw the opportunity

and is rolling out furniture that can wirelessly

charge mobile devices.

Then, of course, there’s Google, which

recently changed its search engine algorithms

to reward mobile-friendly sites. Sites deemed

mobile friendly will receive higher rankings and

will have a ‘mobile-friendly’ tag next to the result.

In addition, Google recently announced Android

Pay and the addition of a ‘buy’ button on

smartphone ads, enabling consumers to make

direct purchases from those ads.

The business equation for broadcasters is

simple: people are using their mobile devices

for everything, everywhere, anytime; and its

generational. Take my six-year-old son, for

example: he’s only allowed to use an iPad

for a limited amount of time and only for age

appropriate apps, yet never needed instructions

on how to use it – mobile is, and will be, the only

way our children know.

It’s all about the end usersBut what should your starting point be if you

want to embrace mobile? There are many

opportunities and technologies, but there is only

one factor that should be the focus. The answer

is your end users, and more specifically, your end

user’s web experiences.

End users have expectations, which are only

getting higher. They expect websites, streamed

content – whether live or on-demand – and

apps to be fast. The findings from Akamai’s

recent Performance Matters study, conducted

from nearly 3,500 respondents in five countries

including the US, UK, France, Germany, and

Japan showed that 49 per cent expect a site

to download in two seconds or less, while one

in five expect a site to download instantly. The

consequences of poor performing sites and

content are high, just like the expectations. Fifty

per cent will abandon a slow site, and one

in five will not return.

Meeting end user expectations is no

straightforward process, as the mobile landscape

is so complex, with multiple operating systems,

many browser alternatives and devices, all

with different capabilities and screen sizes. In

addition, a user’s connection can have a range

of speeds and quality from GPRS to home Wi-Fi

and 4G, which is dynamic and affects the end

user web experience as users change location.

This complexity makes it difficult for companies

to develop websites, content or apps that can

TVBEverywhere34 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015

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Thinking mobile-firstIt’s time for all businesses to think mobile first, writes Berk Veral, senior product marketing manager, web experience, Akamai

provide consistent web performance across their

customer base. It is also costly to develop web

properties that cater to end users with all types

of different profiles; device types, geo-locations,

screen resolutions… the list goes on and on.

All this fragmentation means that companies

adopt different deployment options to get sites,

content and apps into the hands of mobile

users. Some choose to develop and maintain

separate sites for mobile users such as m-domain

or m.dot sites for smartphones and t-domain

sites for tablets. An alternative approach brings

customers via a single URL, but then redirects

users to different web properties or digital

assets that are optimised based on the user’s

device type.

Mobile optimisationOne of the best solutions is implementing

responsive web design (RWD). RWD sites are

mobile-friendly and are the recommended

approach to qualify for Google’s mobile-friendly

tag. They are also considered ‘future-proof’ as

they can adapt to almost any new device that

may be available in the future. However, RWD

sites are only part of the solution. Responsive sites

can have performance penalties due to ‘over

downloading’ if not built properly.

In order to explain that, let’s look at the core

concept of RWD sites: these websites use a

single codebase for all end user devices, and

then optimise the presentation layer based on

device characteristics. In other words, when a

user visits a site, the site content and objects are

downloaded onto the device and then the RWD

code makes decisions on what to display for the

best experience on that device. This is where the

over-downloading issues come to the forefront:

high-res images and heavier objects that won’t

be displayed on less capable devices will likely

be downloaded onto the device as well. So,

while the presentation of the site is optimised,

the performance of the site might be adversely

affected on a smaller device; especially if it’s a

richer, more image heavy site.

The best approach to counter these possible

performance penalties is to use a performance

optimisation solution. These solutions will

complement RWD sites and accelerate content

delivery by optimising the route for bringing

content across the internet and the format

of images delivered to the device to render

the websites for the user. These solutions can

even compress and serve content in the most

appropriate format for a given user device

and connection. This removes the need for

developers to prepare hundreds, possibly

thousands of assets. Just like mobile website

performance, mobile app performance can

be optimised by accelerating APIs. In essence,

mobile apps are similar to dynamic websites

that speak API instead of HTML, meaning the

optimisations above can also help mobile app

performance. For broadcasters, the content

challenge is immense. When you are constantly

producing high quality content, regardless of

device and connection, users want the kind of

experience they get at home: uninterrupted,

high quality, and instant.

TVBEurope 35

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Feature36 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015

Welcome to AmsterdamSo, here we are in Amsterdam once again. It’s scarcely believable that a year has passed since we were last trudging around the cavernous halls of the RAI complex, complaining of blistering feet. As goes with the current territory, much has happened between the 2014 and 2015 events, and to gauge the mood of the industry as we set up camp for another IBC, part two of our preview continues our thought leadership series from a selection of exhibiting companies

I n the past twelve months,

multiscreen services have

matured from delivering a

seamless and secure experience

on a number of devices in and

out of the home to offering more

content options to consumers

and monetisation opportunities

for operators than ever before.

The advent of newcomers such

as Netfl ix and end-to-end content

and service providers

also means that

operators have to

leverage standardised

technology and gain

better insight into

consumer habits to

offer improved search

and recommendation engines and

to unleash new revenue streams.

However, providing a single user

experience on many devices and

the quality of service that consumers

have become accustomed to

remains a challenge for pay-TV

operators. Operators need to use

the same tools as OTT providers,

such as aggregating and analysing

data to better understand user

behaviour related to devices,

location, content type and user

consumption of the service. By

knowing the subscriber’s personal

tastes, operators can upsell

new services and features such

as selling additional Personal

Video Recorder (PVR) storage

space, or offer a tailored content

catalogue. However, multiple

devices, security systems and

analysing large amounts of data

originating from multiple

sources remain a challenge.

Integrating standards-based

content delivery and device

management solutions in

combination with technologies

that are easy to update while

maintaining high quality

delivery can help operators face

stark competition from content

providers and OTT services.

IBC showcaseOperators coming to the ACCESS

stand will see how utilising the

multiscreen management solution

ACCESS Twine can help them

deliver content securely and

seamlessly to multiple devices.

ACCESS Twine has been expanded

to aggregate and analyse a wide

range of data points, such as type

of content watched, consumer

habits, and devices used to access

the platform.

The growth of multiscreen Dr Neale Foster, COO and VP global sales, Access

Stand: 14.D14

PREVIEW

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FeatureSeptember 2015 www.tvbeurope.com TVBEurope 37

The television industry is

undergoing its most signifi cant

transformation since it begun.

Over the next fi ve years, established

rights holders, producers, content

owners, broadcasters and all forms

of MVPD TV service providers will

jostle for position with new entrants,

new investors and new aggregators.

The outcome is unknown, yet the

overall winner is assured. In the

Networked Society of 2020, the

always-connected viewer, with his/

her hunger for immediacy of media

consumption, will have been met

by the most agile and forward-

thinking players. On the journey

to 2020 all of the sacred cows of

television will be put to the test.

Every aspect of the commercial

model – from selling rights,

advertising, bundles, geographical

boundaries and especially carriage

fees – will need rethinking. Beyond

this, serious questions need asking

such as whether the creator and

distributor industries will share the

cost of converting the internet to

TV scale, to safeguard the future of

all video delivery. With such pace

of transformation, the need to be

driving this progression rather than

reacting to it has never been so

important.

IBC showcaseEricsson is announcing and

showcasing its new solutions at

IBC, which enable players to put

consumers at the centre of their

agenda, deliver new experiences,

drive new immersive TV formats

such as UHD and HDR, leverage

the capabilities of the cloud, and

enable IP-networks to become

highly effi cient and revenue-

generating for delivering the

explosion in traffi c fuelled by online

video. Ericsson is publishing the

results of its 2015 ConsumerLab TV

report into what TV consumers and

audiences are demanding.

As a supplier of intercom

systems to the broadcast

industry, we see an early

perspective on infrastructural

changes and expansions among

broadcasters. Market data (and

our own experience) has shown an

overall trend among broadcasters

to expand into regional

broadcasting and venues. The

advancements in IP technologies

have enabled intercom, audio

and video resource sharing across

wide area networks and media

mux/demuxing technologies

at the end points. One of the

challenges for intercom in this

mature market is audio and control

interoperability when using IP audio

standards. Connections need

to be independent so that local

components can be reconfi gured

without taking down all cross-

connected systems or facing

delays in the rediscovery and

reconnections of

all points. Also,

the basic control

fl ow needs to

be universal to

allow crosspoint,

audio level and

trunking control

over other

manufacturers’

systems. There

is movement in the industry with

this standardisation and we look

forward to cooperating in forging a

control standard.

In addition to IP interoperability

is that intercom systems have

always had to connect with other

elements such as the studio mixer

desk and audio router for IFBs or line

monitoring, or through the master

control to outside lines and to

camera and wireless systems.

IBC showcaseClear-Com is presenting its latest

communications and connectivity

solutions at IBC2015 including the

new FreeSpeak II 2.4GHz wireless

intercom, Agent-IC mobile app

and Interactive IFB capabilities.

Clear-Com will also make a

worldwide debut

of all-new intercom and

connectivity offerings to the

broadcast market at the show.

TV transformation and the Networked Society Simon Frost, Ericsson

The challenges of interoperability Simon Browne, director product management, Clear-Com

Stand: 1.D61Stand: 10.D29a

Ericsson is publishing the results of its 2015 ConsumerLab TV

report at IBC2015

PREVIEWFeature38 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015

Meeting the evolving demands of mobile broadcasting Eric Chang, VP marketing, TVU Networks

There are few areas where

the impact of the internet

cannot be felt. The growth of

IP-based solutions in the broadcast

industry is accelerating, and the

adoption of IP-based technologies

by broadcasters is helping to drive

increased efficiency by reshaping

and revolutionising how live video is

acquired, stored, routed, distributed

and consumed.

IP-based technology is

evolving more rapidly than ever

and challenging traditional SDI

infrastructures with added flexibility

and functionality in the capture and

sharing of video for news and sports.

The advantages of moving from SDI

to IP-based technologies with the

promise of increased efficiencies

and dramatic operational cost

savings are hard to ignore. The

focus has shifted to solution

enhancements and transformation

but without necessarily impacting

existing broadcast workflows. By

migrating to more efficient, IP-based

video solutions, users and networks

are able to scale and automate

several processes to improve and

enhance everyday operations.

To meet the evolving needs of

the ever-changing landscape

of mobile broadcasting, the

acquisition and control of live video

streams will be left to innovative,

competitive solutions for IP-based

central management of live

video broadcasts from virtually

anywhere and distribute to multiple

locations. These solutions will enable

broadcasters to utilise their existing

infrastructure by transmitting video

between transceivers over their

network environment and monitor

IP streams in real-time, without the

need to convert signals from SDI.

IBC showcaseTVU Networks is a pioneer in IP

video technology and is leading

the way in helping organisations

looking to transition to a

predominantly IP-based

infrastructure. TVU Grid solves the

challenge of switching, routing

and distributing professional-

quality live video with low latency

using ubiquitous, cost-effective IP

networks within existing workflows.

Stand: 2.B28

FeatureSeptember 2015 www.tvbeurope.com

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In just over a decade, video over IP

has emerged as the video delivery

method of choice for a wide

range of professional organisations

across a variety of verticals looking

to modernise their AV and video

communication services. However,

the demand for seamless distribution

of video content in a professional

environment has amplified the threat

of piracy and all organisations must

be vigilant in ensuring that their

video over IP solution provides a

secure service that complies with the

content industry’s requirements.

The utilisation of Conditional

Access and Digital Rights

Management systems only scratches

the surface of what is needed to

secure content across the entire

network. As the only standard for

delivery over IP, High-bandwidth

Digital Content Protection v2

(HDCPv2) is essential for it to function

as a fully secure solution as it provides

robust protection for communications

over one or more links in a network,

including both wired and wireless

communication between devices.

There is now an increased demand

for secure end-to-end professional

video over IP systems as a direct

result of the increasing industry-wide

understanding of the systems, which

must be able to handle all types of

broadcast signal without picture or

quality of service degradation, and

support for content protection in

the distribution system now plays a

central role in enabling organisations

to distribute a wide range of high

quality content wherever it is viewed.

IBC showcaseExterity is showcasing its HDCPv2-

secured video over IP distribution

system at IBC to enable news

channels, production houses and

proAV installers to discover how they

can leverage their IP network to

distribute high value content securely

to any screen without risking third

party access. Exterity is also showing

its Beyond the LAN product range

that facilitate the seamless delivery

of content over IP to any connected

device over any network.

The importance of security in VoIP systems Colin Farquhar, CEO, Exterity

Stand:14.H13

Beyond the LAN + HDCPv2

Since we started FilmLight

in 2002, we have seen a

huge transformation in our

industry, The transition to all-digital

technology, the transition to non-

linear, fi le-based workfl ows, and

the commoditisation of products

and roles. We have lived within the

‘age of disruption’ from the very

beginning, and hopefully have

done a little ourselves to contribute

to it. Seen against that backdrop, it

is easy to conclude that there isn’t

much left to do. 4K, HFR, HDR – who

cares? Actually, some people do.

There is some confusion about

what constitutes ‘our industry’.

The threshold of entry has all but

disappeared, and the attraction to

be a part of it hasn’t gone away.

So there is a lot of noise – amplifi ed

by social media – that drowns

out the serious work that is going

on. High quality content creation

cannot be commoditised. It is a

collaborative effort that requires

both talent and experience, which

will always be in short supply. From

our perspective as an independent

specialist manufacturer, we see this

polarisation of the market as an

opportunity. We don’t need 100,000

customers. We are happy to deal

with the small group of people you

fi nd all over the world who feel

the need to push the technology

beyond what it can do today,

to push for higher productivity,

to push for new ways to express

their creativity. Because they care

about quality. And they do so

from a position of experience. So

there is plenty more to do for us as

a technology developer. Not all

of what we do fi ts into the trends

highlighted at a show like IBC. But

we know for sure it is appreciated

by our customers.

www.tvbeurope.com September 2015

Feature40 TVBEurope

PREVIEW

Stand: 7.F31

The ‘age of disruption’By Wolfgang Lempp, CEO and co-founder, FilmLight

Big Data is a hype topic in the

television industry. We hear a

lot about it, and how it can

have a transformational impact on

companies that mine it and use it

properly. But there is very little by

way of best practice, real results or

real impact on the TV business.

Take multiscreen. The

consumption of multiscreen video

viewing may be harder to track

than traditional linear TV in the living

room but the bigger challenge lies

in the subsequent analysis to gain

deeper insights about its impact on

viewer behaviour – and how this

can help an operator in the key

areas of acquisition, retention and

ARPU.

Multiscreen has helped create

a binge viewing culture, which has

already been exploited to great

effect by Netfl ix in exploiting viewer

insights to drive consumption. Netfl ix

created ten different trailer cuts for

House of Cards, targeting them on

the basis of past viewer behaviour.

The challenge now is to exploit

multiscreen in a similar way,

targeting recommendations and

ads not just by viewer identity

but also by what and where they

are watching. And data is sure to

play an important role in ensuring

operators can do exactly that.

IBC showcaseAt IBC, Genius Digital is discussing

what is has learnt from working

with its newest customer, a major

leading pay-TV provider. The

customer is using big data to get

a clearer understanding of what

its customer base is doing, and to

help it to make better decisions

around scheduling, packaging,

retention and advertising.

Big Data in actionGiles Cottle, director of consumer insight products, Genius Digital

Stand: 14.F33

The evolution of the broadcast

and production industries

toward progressively more

IT-centric thinking continues to

accelerate, and it is encouraging

to see renewed enthusiasm for

software-based solutions and the

drive toward virtualisation. Clearly,

the rationalisation of hardware,

increased ease of use, and

workfl ow effi ciency are motivating

this shift in thinking. The transition

from SDI to IP-based workfl ows

is a critical step in this migration

toward virtualised software-based

architectures. Moving from today’s

SDI connected discreet devices

to tomorrow’s all-IP virtualised

infrastructure will be a multi-

phased journey for most. During this

evolution process, the ability of key

workfl ow components to ‘speak

both languages’ is mandatory.

Specifi cally, media server platforms

should simultaneously accept both

SDI and IP TS sources as live sources

and inputs for ingest and combine

them with graphics, DVEs, audio

and video effects to create SDI

and IP outputs. This approach will

support baseband and compressed

workfl ows while preserving frame-

accurate automation control, which

is vital for broadcasters

IBC showcaseThe Spectrum X advanced media

server system is making its European

debut at IBC2015. Spectrum X

elevates the industry’s most trusted

server platform to new levels of

fl exibility, effi ciency and reliability.

Designed for production and

playout applications, the Spectrum

X media server system eases the

transition to IP broadcast workfl ows

by integrating SDI and IP I/O on the

same chassis. Also on display is the

Harmonic MediaGrid ContentStore

5840 shared storage system.

Encouraging signs on the road to virtualisationAndy Warman, Harmonic

Stand: 1.B20

Baselight with three UI monitors and Blackboard 2


Stand: 7.K11

Let’s take one key example

of the accelerating change

in live acquisition. The UK

General Election in May saw

LiveU partnering with Sky News

and the result was a paradigm

shift in live coverage. While our

technology has already been used

extensively for elections – most

recently including India, Sri Lanka,

Greece, and Spain – they were

nothing on the scale of this project

with Sky News: the broadcaster

delivered 138 live IP feeds from

150 key counts and constituencies

countrywide using LiveU’s cellular

uplinking technology. This was

unprecedented. Sky News was keen

to expand upon its coverage of the

Scottish Referendum 2014. There

it provided additional coverage

from 32 locations, using apps and

iPads. During early planning stages

for 2015, a demo unit of LiveU’s

LU200 ultra-small transmission

device arrived at Sky News. After

conversations with LiveU, and

further internal discussions, it was

decided that LiveU units out in the

field, providing coverage of 150

constituency declarations at 138

key counts, would give Sky News a

unique selling point for its coverage

of the election. The Scottish

Referendum project provided

additional TV feeds as well as online

coverage (all 32 locations were

streamed live on YouTube) on top

of the feeds provided by traditional

TV OB trucks, but the audio and

picture quality were not ideal. When

it came to providing coverage from

150 declarations, the Sky150 as it

came to be known, the decision

was made to use ‘proper’ hardware

units and a proper camera. The

138 LiveU transmission units were

paired with Sony PJ620 Handycams,

each manned by a team of

trained media students and young

journalists.

This was in addition to the existing

49 traditional OB trucks providing

live feeds to the newsroom – as

deployed for the last election –

using capacity on an ad-hoc basis

from providers Globecast, SIS Live

and Arqiva.

LiveU develops its solutions-based approach at IBC2015

Stand: 3.B62

Ronen Artman, LiveU

TVBEurope 43

www.mediagenix.tvwww.mediagenix.tv

SCHEDULING

Streamline your

Model your schedules from the concept up to broadcasting and beyond over multiple media.www.mediagenix.tv

V oD, time-shift TV,

multiscreen viewing and

download-to-own (DTO)

are all having a huge impact

on how we access content,

enabling EPG providers to bring

new opportunities for growth to

channels, platforms and content

owners. As demand for content

continues to increase, the role

of the EPG becomes even more

important. In the linear world,

when channels and platforms

need to aggregate and supply

data for the EPG there’s a

create-once-distribute-many-

times approach.

But what happens when a

platform adds new services such

as VoD or DTO? The traditional

schedule no longer fits non-linear

platforms as content can be

viewed or purchased 24/7.

IBC showcaseEBS is demonstrating how its

Pawa database overcomes

these challenges providing a

multi-platform, multi-territory,

scalable solution that enables

EPG data to be aggregated,

restructured and delivered.

EPG in a VoD world Keith Bedford, MD, EBS

Stand: 14.B01

Customers around the world rely on Pawa for their EPG data services


IP content is an area that’s grown

its footprint in the industry. Our

clients produce live programming,

or real-time mixes for post production

or on-demand viewing. They use our

solutions to deal with coordinating

on-site camera coverage, pre-

produced packages, B-roll clips,

titles and graphics all at once. But

audiences now expect more from a

show than traditional video mixing.

One opportunity opens up when

producers can incorporate non-

traditional sources in their shows

– bring up a web page, cut to a

Skype video call, click through a

presentation, change positions on

a PTZ camera, or call up any other

IP source from the vision mixer – just

as readily as they would switch a

camera angle.

This new world of IP access extends

beyond inputting computer feeds

or robotic cameras; it potentially

takes a workflow wherever the LAN

goes – audio routing, web control,

automation with HTTP, network tally

– workflow-wide efficiencies that

have greater implications for on-site

production. Where is on-site?

Maybe we can start to define it by

where the cameras are, while other

sources, even virtual guests and a

few crew members, can remain

where they are.

The biggest challenge for our

customers is the fragmentation

accelerating across the entire

technology spectrum for audience

viewership: multiple devices and

screens; new media platforms that

crop up every day; formatting for

social media engagement; and

feeding massive appetites for

consuming video. Against any one

of those perspectives, producers

have to grapple with the delivery

technology to keep up.

IBC showcaseAt IBC2015, NewTek is showcasing its

full range of TriCaster multi-camera

live production solutions, along with

its 3Play sports production solution

and the acclaimed TalkShow video

calling production system.

The new world of IP access Ellen Camloh, senior director worldwide segment and product marketing, NewTek

Stand: 7.K11

NewTek’s 3Play 440


All trademarks remain property of their respective holders, and are used only to directly describe the products being provided. Their use in no way indicates any relationship between Primestream Corporation and the holders of said trademarks.

Stand: 7.K11

The business of video has

evolved from the ecosystem

of established roles and

revenue models that it used to

be. No longer should TV channels

and broadcasters only take

entertainment to living rooms in

a one-way, linear fashion. Pay-TV

operators and broadband providers

too need to think beyond their

stable distribution infrastructures for

getting content to viewers.

Bandwidth speeds and the

sophistication of connected

devices have now caught up with

consumers’ desires to watch video

wherever and whenever they want.

Online video content consumption

is rocketing and many businesses

are at risk of seeing eyeballs drift

away from their programming unless

they explore more flexible offerings

for their viewers.

OTT is a proven way to reach

larger audiences, generate new

revenue and extend the value

of existing content for as long

as possible. It can bring about

all sorts of positive outcomes for

businesses such as the ability to

attract new content deals, build

customer loyalty and attract

high-value advertisers. However,

the main challenge for many is

that they don’t understand OTT

well enough to confidently design

and implement a sustainable

monetisation strategy. In fact, some

businesses are waiting to understand

OTT better before moving into it –

risking market share to competing

services in the meantime.

Developing a strategy comes down

to precise planning and strategy,

and having the foresight to use the

latest services available to mitigate

the risks involved in diversifying into

new delivery methods. Online video

specialists such as Piksel can help

support businesses with overcoming

these obstacles.

IBC showcasePiksel is demonstrating how its

services-led approach addresses

these diverse business needs.

Underpinned by the transformative

Piksel Palette, Piksel’s cloud-based

modular framework, Piksel is

showing how its Strategic Services

portfolio of Consumer Insights,

Content Acquisition Services and

Business Modeling helps businesses

develop successful online video

strategies. Piksel is also highlighting

how its managed and professional

services support and future-proof

client businesses, enabling stable

growth alongside the entry of new

technologies, competitors, and shifts

in consumer trends.

Stand: 14.C34

The business of video Neil Berry, EVP commercial, EMEA, Piksel

TVBEurope 45



WORKFLOW

Optimize your

Optimize linear broadcasting and on-demand services in a single system and streamline your

www.mediagenix.tv

Capturing viewer attention

is becoming more difficult

every day, leading TV to push

the limits of technology, whether

it’s shooting with more cameras or

delivering in higher definition. Much

of the heavy lifting that makes these

changes work falls to workflow

infrastructure, and in particular to its

storage, which must be fast, efficient

and flexible.

To meet these new demands, more

and more workflows are expanding

their storage from exclusively disk-

based online storage and tape-

based archives to architectures that

integrate more storage options, such

as object storage and cloud. When

these mixed types of storage are

properly integrated into the workflow,

content can remain accessible

through a single infrastructure.

At the same time workflows are

expanding to include new storage

options, smaller-scale producers and

post houses are demanding solutions

which are attractively priced, but still

powerful enough to handle large files

of broadcast-quality content.

With the right workflow storage,

advances in technology don’t have

to be disruptive but can help you

unleash your creative vision.

IBC showcaseAt IBC2015 Quantum are available

to speak about the latest in media

and entertainment storage solutions.

We’re also presenting StorNext

Pro Foundation, our collaborative

storage for small workgroups. It’s a

complete, integrated shared storage

solution designed specifically for

post, broadcast, corporate and

government video.

Unleashing creative vision with new storage solutions Alex Grossman, vice president, media and entertainment, Quantum

Stand: 7.B26

The advent of 4K has increased

consumer demand for high

quality video anywhere and

on any device, and has made

multiple encodings across video

platforms almost unavoidable. This

new paradigm results in inventory

complexity and redundancy of

data, both of which increase costs

through the requirement for more

computing power, bandwidth and

storage. With consumers expecting

to watch high quality content

seamlessly on every platform, the

discrepancy between traditional

codecs and the reality of UHD

requirements is forcing operators

to implement flexible encoding

solutions that combine picture

quality with ease of use.

Reducing bandwidth is one

way for operators to address the

economic challenges of delivering

UHD content in multiple formats and

to more devices than ever before.

In a mobile streaming age where

4G users are expected to generate

46 per cent of all mobile traffic by

2018, extending the reach of video

services to mobile devices is another

key requirement for the broadcast

and OTT industry.

IBC showcase At IBC, V-Nova is discussing how its

market traction with Tier-1 chipset

manufacturers, operators and

compression vendors answers the

industry’s growing realisation that

today’s compression technologies

will not meet tomorrow’s bandwidth

and business challenges. Visitors

to IBC can experience PERSEUS

demonstrations on a number

of partner booths and see for

themselves just what V-Nova’s

compression is capable of.

The reality of UHD By Guido Meardi, CEO, V-Nova

Stand: 14.M23

Quantum StorNext

Associated-Rediffusion’s Marconi cameras covered the first broadcast

from London Guildhall a on 22 September 1955

Tuesday 22 September sees the 60th

anniversary of the launch of independent

television in the UK. Independent because

the new broadcasting service had to be seen

as free from the BBC monopoly that had existed

up to that point.

Although the launch of commercial television

was in 1955, the process started a year earlier

when parliament passed the Television Act, thus

creating the Independent Television Authority

(ITA) to regulate the new service. During the

debate in parliament, former BBC director

general, Lord Reith, compared “sponsored

broadcasting” to smallpox, bubonic plague

and the Black Death.

Of course, in those days there was no such

company as ITV. And, just to complicate matters

as far as the general public was concerned,

the ITA didn’t make programmes. The UK was

divided up into regions with a different franchise

holder responsible for the programmes to be

aired in that particular area. But it wasn’t even

that simple. The three main regions – London,

midlands and the north – required different

contractors for the weekdays and weekend,

to prevent one company from becoming

too dominant in the new marketplace.

The fi rst two contractors, responsible for the

London region, had been named as Associated

Rediffusion (AR) for the Monday to Friday

operation, and the Associated Broadcasting

Company (ABC) responsible for weekend

programmes from the ITA’s transmitter in

Croydon.

Tracing the pedigreeAR traced its pedigree back to the 19th century

– long before television, of course – and was

made up of two main shareholders: British Electric

Traction (BET) and Associated Newspapers.


Philip Stevens takes a nostalgic look back at the early days of commercial television in the UK

ITV’s diamond anniversary

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BET started its corporate life by

installing power cables for the trams

that had become a popular form

of transport towards the end of the

Victorian monarchy. The traction

part of the company name came

from the fact that the company

also made tram motors; or tractions.

With the advent of radio

broadcasting in the early 1920s, low

power transmitters and homemade

‘cat’s whisker’ receivers meant

that reception was often hit and

miss. BET was able to capitalise on

the fact that it had a significant

network of cables in many large

towns. If the company erected

some big and well tuned aerials

to pick up transmissions from the

BBC (British Broadcasting Company,

in those days) and use its cable

network to deliver programmes

directly into living rooms, then

the unreliable reception could

be avoided.

BET set up this network and in

March 1928 the operation became

known as Rediffusion: a word

meaning ‘broadcasting again’.

Unwilling to gamble on its own for

the London weekday contract,

BET joined forces with Daily Mail

publisher Associated Newspapers,

and Associated Rediffusion was

born. The Associated Broadcasting

Company was also a result of

a merger. Before the ITA Act

became law, a consortium called

the Associated Broadcasting

Development Company (ABDC)

had been created to help push the

legislation through parliament.

When the Act became law,

impresario Lew Grade and his

consortium, ITC (Independent

Television Company), applied for

an ITA contract. But because it was

considered to have undue control

over potential broadcasting talent,

its bid was refused. However, by

joining with the ABDC, the problem

was overcome and the London

weekend contract was awarded

to the newly-formed Associated

Broadcasting Company.

If the viewing public had been

confused over terms such as ITA, ITV,

AR and ABC, more bewilderment

was on the way. The midlands and

north weekend ITA contracts were

awarded to the Associated-British

Picture Corporation operating

under the name Associated-British

Cinemas Television (ABC-TV).

It took a court case to settle who

had to change the name:

Lew Grade lost, and the

London weekend contractor

was re-branded Associated

TeleVision (ATV).

Killing the audienceOn that Thursday in September

which marked the start of

commercial television, the BBC did

its best to prevent the launch of its

new rival from being an audience-

puller. The Corporation’s already

long-running radio soap The Archers

decided to ‘kill off’ one of the

leading characters, Grace Archer,

in a dramatic stable fire just minutes

before the 1915 hours start of the

new TV service.

The first programme was an

outside broadcast of a dinner to

celebrate the new TV service held

at London’s Guildhall. The cameras

used for that OB were Marconi Mk

IIIs. However, speeches were filmed

using an Auricon 16mm camera

(1,000ft magazine) with a turret

lens. One of those speeches was

delivered by the then postmaster

general Charles Hill during which he

addressed the fear that some had

voiced about the appearance of

advertisements during programmes.

He stated in no uncertain terms,

“We shall not be bothered by a

violinist stopping in the middle of

his solo to advise us of his favourite

brand of cigarettes, nor indeed

will Hamlet interrupt his soliloquy

to tell us of the favourite brand

of toothpaste ordinarily used at

Elsinore.” Perhaps that reference to

toothpaste was not without some

degree of advance notice. The

long-awaited first advertisement on

commercial television appeared at

2012 hours and featured Gibbs SR

Toothpaste. In all, 23 commercials

were shown on that opening night.

But if the appearance of

commercials on the fledgling

television service was designed to

make the contractors very wealthy,

the early signs were not good.

Whether or not the death in The

Archers had anything to do with

it might be debatable, but by the

end of the first night commercial

television was losing money. The

next few months didn’t show any

signs of improvement and it would

be some years before the contracts

made economic sense.

But, eventually, there was

money to be made in commercial

television. In 1957, Lord Thomson

of Fleet made a successful bid for

the franchise for Central Scotland.

He described winning the Scottish

Television (STV) contract as a

“permit to print money” (a phrase

frequently misquoted as a “licence

to print money”).

Being a Thursday, the launch

day came under the banner of

Associated Rediffusion, although a

variety show on that first evening

was made by weekend contractor

ABC and produced by Bill Ward.

Other programmes that evening

included 30 minutes of drama

excerpts starring Sir John Gielgud,

Alec Guinness and Kay Hammond,

a boxing match, a news bulletin

and cabaret before the final five-

minute Epilogue.

It is estimated that around

100,000 viewers watched at

some time on that first night. That

compares to an estimated eight

million listeners who heard that

fateful episode of The Archers.

Mass production seriesThe first weekend of commercial

television saw the introduction

of what would become a long-

running feature of those early

days – the half-hour episode of The

Adventures of Robin Hood. Made

by ITC, it involved a new technique


Feature

‘In 1954 former BBC director general, Lord Reith, compared “sponsored broadcasting” to smallpox, bubonic plague and the

Black Death’


VODStreamline your

from content acquisition over

scheduling to publishing and

package your content using

miniplaylists or render channels.

www.mediagenix.tv

in television film-making which, in effect,

created a production line (suitable choice of

phrase) process. By mounting standard items –

such as staircases, rooms, fireplaces – on wheels,

sets could be quickly created in readiness for

the next shot. This procedure allowed each

26-minute programme (allowing times for the

all-important commercials) to be turned out

every four and a half days.

Rapid turnaround times were essential if

budgets were to be maintained. On one

occasion, when the director called for positions

for a take, one actor (new to the series) asked

about a rehearsal. He was given short shrift.

“But I don’t know what side to enter,” he

lamented. “Are you a goodie or a baddie?” he

was asked. “A baddie.” “Then you enter from

the right: baddies always enter from the right.”

This fast turnaround technique became a

feature of a number of other ITC series.

Building the networkOver the next few years, the network spread

across the UK. Alongside its London weekend


Pic

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The launch of commercial television brought about production line series such as the ever popular The Adventures of Robin Hood

operation, ATV was awarded the midlands

weekday franchise. Later Granada Television

was installed as the North’s weekday contractor.

As well as STV mentioned earlier, other

franchise holders were Television Wales and

the West (TWW), Southern Television, Tyne Tees

Television, Anglia Television, Ulster Television,

Westward Television, Border Television and

Grampian Television.

These were followed by the last two stations

to go on air, and both had their own stories.

Channel Television was the smallest station on

the network, and in those distant days, there

was no direct transmission link with the Channel

Islands. That called for an innovative solution

for the delivery of network programmes to the

Islands. That answer involved Channel taking

its signals directly from the off-air transmission

of Southern at Chillerton Down on the Isle of

Wight or Westward at Caradon Hill in Cornwall,

and then inserting its own commercials at the

appropriate moment. That kept the Transmission

Controllers alert, for a late switch would see

the wrong commercials being broadcast

to the islands.

The last contractor to join the network

was Wales (West and North) Television

(Teledu Cymru). Sadly, in less than two

years, the financial position of the company

became untenable and the operation was

absorbed into TWW.

Alongside the programme contractors, a

separate company, Independent Television

News, was created. ITN, of course, still exists

today. Southern Television was able to lay claim

to being the only company with a floating OB

unit: having mounted cameras and control

rooms in a vessel capable of covering major

events such as Cowes Week.

Over the years, several contracts were

awarded to different groups until in 2004,


Feature

The forerunner of modern day prompters – long strips of paper on a modified caption roller

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Virtual Studio solutions made easy!Datavideo introduces the TVS-1200, two 3G SDI input trackless virtual studio solution. The TVS-1200 uses two single fixed cameras. This allows the director to zoom, pan and tilt the camera virtually within the set.

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TVS-1200

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[email protected] Technologies Europe B.V.

2015

Visit our booth: hall 7 booth D39


ITV plc became the owner of 11 of the

15 regional licences. Today, ITV plc sells

advertising for all 15 of the licences and

produces or commissions a great deal of the

programming broadcast across its channels.

Technology transitionsThe past six decades have seen technological

advances beyond compare. And it would

take numerous articles to detail all of

those changes, so perhaps just a few

merit being highlighted.

Video tape – let alone tapeless recording –

was still some way off in 1955. If a programme

needed to be recorded, a film camera was

bolted very securely in front of a high grade

monitor and the images and sound captured on

16mm or 35mm film.

Even highly successful quiz programmes such

as Associated Rediffusion’s Double your Money

and Take your Pick were recorded in this way

and edited for transmission.

The term ‘high definition’ meant something

quite different in 1955. A company called High

Definition Films with studios in north London was

responsible for making those quizzes for ARTV.

The programmes were shot using three Pye Mark

II cameras with varying line and frame speeds

to create a higher resolution image. The cut

programme was then sent to the basement and

recorded using a camera filming a low gamma,

high definition flat glass display monitor. Not the

HD we know and love today. How definitions

(excuse the pun) have changed.

One of the cutting room staff who worked

on the first Double your Money programme

recalls that the team were facing a very tight

schedule. This individual collected the print

from the film labs on the morning of transmission

and, unable to view it, took it straight to AR

who promised to run and check it.

In the event, the broadcaster rehearsed

with the sound off and that evening it was

discovered to everyone’s dismay and

embarrassment that the labs had misread

a sound key number and the print was

about 100ft out of sync.

London weekend contractor ATV favoured Pye Mk III cameras for its extensive OB operation

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Feature

Sound of silenceCommercials were made on 35mm film. And

because the picture gate on telecine machines

(the TV equivalent of film projectors) and the

sound reproduction head were 20 frames

apart, film prints were produced with the audio

advanced by that length.

For transmission, the commercials were

assembled into breaks. After transmission, the

films were disassembled and placed back

in their relevant cans. The next time that

commercial was assembled, the film joining

process (cement in those days) meant that one

frame was lost at the start of the commercial. To

prevent the audio being chopped through the

continual use of the same film print, a silence

of 38 frames was placed at the start of each

commercial, no matter the overall length. Such

technical problems do not exist with taped or

tapeless advertisements, of course.

Channel in a control roomAnother area that has seen a massive change is

in the region of transmission control. Operations

varied between contractors, but one example

would send today’s financial directors into a

state of shock with its level of manning.

ATV’s master control in London was located

in Foley Street, close to the Museum telephone

exchange which served as the switching centre

for TV circuits. Here in the basement no less

than four personnel handled all transmissions

for the single channel of London’s weekend

broadcaster. The Transmission Controller was

in charge, directing the shots, calling for the

telecine machines and, later, VTRs to be rolled

and so on. He was assisted by the MCR engineer,

Highbury Studios where early quiz shows were produced awaits a crew for the next programme

a vision mixer and a sound controller. Instant

starts were unknown in those days, and so careful

planning about when to roll the machines for film

and VT inserts was necessary. Telecine machines

required a five-second pre-roll to achieve stable

image and sound, while VTR required at least 15

seconds to produce a usable signal.

Coping with commercial breaks was an intense

affair and required deep concentration. A

normal top of the hour sequence might include

a commercial break of two and a half minutes

(on film), station ident (on a different telecine),

a seven-second commercial (again on film), a

live clock with live announcer and then cut to

the next programme. And all had to be cued

and timed to the second to meet network

commitments. Lots of cue dots all over the place.

Maybe Channel in a Box has some merits,

after all. Then, of course, there was how to

place credits and captions over live material.

Those early days were pre-keying technology

and credits were created by superimposing

the output of a camera focused on the card

mounted or a roller caption of another showing

the background action. The ‘super’ being

created by using a ‘half mix’ on the vision mixer –

with varying degrees of success when it came to

reading the words.

Doubling upMultitasking is not a modern invention.During the

late 1950s the ITV sports programme Let’s Go was

broadcast from the Alpha Television

Studios in Birmingham. The live programme

was hosted by Berkeley Smith, who was head

of outside broadcast at Southern Television.

But not only did he present the programme,

he also directed it.

The programme originated from the

production gallery where Smith would not only

introduce the next OB by talking to camera three

located next to the monitor stack, but would also

be cueing it as well.

The next 60So, what will the next 60 years hold? In

1955, it is doubtful that many of those

pioneers would have envisaged tapeless

technology, or a multitude of satellites in

geo-stationary positions that allow instant

access to news around the globe or the

whole host of other innovations that have

been developed. With that in mind, it will

be a brave person who will predict what

readers of TVBEurope will be poring over in

September 2075.

Happy anniversary ITV.


Hughie Green was the host of AR’s Double your Money quiz. The cut feed of the programme was telerecorded and then edited for broadcast

Pic

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Sounding out the experts


Forum

Audio consoles often appear as

the glamorous part of the

broadcasting chain. But, of

course, there is far more involved in sound

reproduction than mixing desks. So, what

are these ‘other’ topics?

We asked Larry Schindel, senior applications

engineer for Linear Acoustic; Anthony Wilkins,

international sales and marketing manager,

Jünger Audio; MC Patel, CEO, Emotion Systems;

Tuomo Tolonen, Shure UK’s pro audio and

broadcast group manager; Lee Ellison, CEO,

Audinate; Matthias Exner, Audio-Technica’s

business development director EMEA; Andreas

Hildebrand, senior product manager at ALC

NetworX (Ravenna); and Achim Gleissner, head of

commercial management broadcast and media

at Sennheiser for their input.

In the second audio forum of the year, Philip Stevens talks to several foremost sources about issues facing the sound side of broadcasting


Forum

Broadcasters’ demands when it comes to collecting metadataSince its creation, metadata has been used,

misused, set properly, improperly, or simply left at

the default values. It is often misunderstood, yet it

is key to getting modern audio correct.

According to Larry Schindel, senior applications

engineer for Linear Acoustic, the most important,

and commonly used, metadata describes the

number of channels contained in an audio

stream, the average loudness of a programme

(sometimes called dialnorm or Program

Reference Level) and the dynamic range

compression information.

“Other metadata exists for information

such as the type of stereo downmix to

perform when necessary, gain of the centre and

surround channels when downmixing, whether

a two channel programme is a stereo mix or

has been surround encoded, copyright

information and so on.”

Schindel goes on to say that where metadata

really starts to get interesting is when emerging

audio technologies are discussed. “A new type

of metadata is starting to be deployed which

signals the measured loudness of an audio

programme and indicates whether or not

the audio has been corrected. Newer, more

intelligent, loudness processors will be able to

read this metadata and know whether they

should process the audio as normal or just let

it pass through. The result of this will be audio

that sounds less compressed, more natural, and

correctly at the target level.”

Next generation TV audio systems will include

object-based audio and/or immersive audio, and

will utilise other new types of metadata. In some

cases, each sound is considered to be its own

audio ‘object’ with positional metadata or other

metadata attached to it.

“This will facilitate transmitting the mix elements

such as the ‘bed’ mix and dialogue channels,

individually, and then having the next generation

DTV receiver mix the audio together based on

a combination of the producer’s intent, the

viewer’s preferences, and the configuration of

the viewer’s audio system.”

He goes on, “Before you panic and think

you’re about to lose control of your audio mix,

the addition of this metadata will provide a

better experience for viewers, while saving

valuable bandwidth in the transport stream.”

Schindel’s view is that producers and

broadcasters will be able to author the

metadata in such a way that viewers are

provided with some fixed and pre-selected

choices to optimise their experience.

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“I like to compare this mic and the processing unit to the human ears and the

brain. The ears are also just stereo, and the brain turns their signals into 3D”

Achim Gleissner, Sennheiser


Forum

Audio monitoring for HDTV broadcastAccording to Anthony Wilkins, international sales

and marketing manager, Jünger Audio, when

it comes to creating audio for HDTV broadcast,

a good starting point should be the subjective

quality of the mix itself. “In order to reliably and

repeatedly judge this, along with your preferred

set of monitors, a correctly calibrated listening

environment should be considered essential.

When mixing TV content, general consensus

suggests that a measured level of 79dB SPL –

using C-Weighted Pink Noise – at the mixing

position is appropriate. A monitoring control

unit that allows individual speaker level and

EQ is ideal for this.” Another vital element is the

perceived loudness level in order to ‘comply’

with the relevant local standard. This requires the

use of loudness measurement based on ITU.R

BS.1770-3 with its in-built K weighting and relative

gating to give a reliable reading in LUFS/LKFS to

check that the programme loudness is in line with

the target value. “Equally important is to monitor

the loudness range of the mix, which should be

maintained at a level appropriate for the final

destination of the content.”

As Wilkins points out, audio for HDTV broadcast

is often encoded into either AC3 (Dolby Digital)

or E-AC3 (Dolby Digital Plus) and this introduces

another consideration: metadata. “When the

bitstream arrives at the end user’s decoder,

metadata parameters determine some of the

behaviours of the decoder and how it affects the

reproduced audio. DRC is a selectable Dynamic

Range Control profile that will apply a pre-

determined amount of compression to match

wider dynamic range content to equipment

less capable of reproducing the full range. HDTV

broadcast is often accompanied by 5.1 Surround

Main image: Cable TV Show Poker Night in America makes full use of digital audio networking. Above, left to right: Achim Gleissner, Sennheiser; Andreas Hildebrand, Ravenna; Anthony Wilkins, Jünger Audio; Larry Schindel, Linear Acoustic; and Lee Ellison, Audinate

Audio, but many consumers will be watching on

equipment that can only reproduce Stereo audio.

DOWNMIX instructs the decoder how to distribute

the six channels of audio across the available two,

while DIALNORM implements a scaling factor that

normalises all audio output to a level equivalent

to -31dBFS. This should ensure that all programmes

are perceived at a consistent loudness level, but it

is dependent on the actual programme loudness

and DIALNORM values matching. All of the above

means that there are multiple opportunities for

inaccurate metadata parameters to cause

unwanted audio effects and a method of

verifying the values before broadcast would be

advantageous.”

Loudness yesterday, today and tomorrowThe fundamental challenge of loudness control

has not changed much over the years. The aim

is to enable the audience to enjoy the full

dynamic range that’s in compliance with

broadcast standards.

“In the past, many television adverts and promos

have been mixed to push hard on the allowable

peak levels, which removes the dynamics and

gives a lifeless, but loud and intrusive result,”

maintains MC Patel, CEO of Emotion Systems.

“The consequence has been commercials that

are far higher in volume than the programmes

they sandwich. Perhaps the creators forgot that

we have a mute button on our remotes!”

In October 2014, the UK’s Digital Production

Partnership (DPP) approved a common file

delivery specification which requires compliance

to EBU 128 based Programme Loudness. That

meant instead of measuring the peak level of

audio, measurements are taken for the average

level as specified by the standard, and similar

variants for the USA and other countries.

“Emotion has provided Programme Loudness

measurement and correction to all global

audio standards for a number of years and

our algorithm is designed to allow Programme

Loudness and True Peak Correction without

changing the creative mix,” says Patel.

The current challenge in Loudness control is to

provide good quality audio on second screens

such as tablets and mobiles, as well as for radio

where the ambient sound levels are high and the

speakers often quite poor.

“We’re monitoring this closely and are

keenly interested in how we might solve new

broadcast challenges for all media. Our future

goal in a world of manifold devices and delivery

mechanisms is to give the listener a satisfying

experience, regardless of the way they gain

access to it.”

Microphone technology: The importance of wirelessMicrophones are the first contact with the

audio source, which means quality and

reliability are imperative.

“Every component of a microphone needs

to be meticulously designed, built, and tested,”

emphasises Tuomo Tolonen, Shure UK’s pro audio

and broadcast group manager. “Thankfully,

we as wired microphone manufacturers have

comprehensive control over the design and build

of our products: the results are predictable, and

destiny is in our hands.”

Wireless microphones, however, are a

different matter, and with so many units now in

operation across live performance, broadcast,

and even corporate installation, it is as important

to focus on this technology as it is microphone

capsule design.

Unfortunately, the sharp increase in wireless

microphone and in-ear monitor systems has

correlated with an increase in demand for

RF spectrum by the mobile phone industry.

Increasingly, the trend has been to allocate

more and more spectrum for use by mobile

data services, which leaves the broadcast

industry in a precarious situation. “In a nutshell,

changes to allocation over recent years have

left us with less spectrum, higher wireless

channel counts and the possibility of

also sharing with further users,” laments

Tolonen. “The risk of interference has

greatly increased, and for live events in

particular, the consequences can often be

substantial. To put it quite bluntly, when an event

like The Voice goes live, that mic had better

work.” He continues, “Unlike the production

of our microphone capsules, there is only so

much influence we can impose on the agenda

of governments when it comes to spectrum

allocation. We can raise awareness – as Shure

has done through the recent ‘Losing Your Voice’

campaign – but ultimately money talks.” Ten

years ago, Shure recognised the importance

of spectrum efficiency, and this sparked an

ambitious R&D project to develop the world’s

most complete wireless system.

The result is the Axient Wireless Management

System. Axient pioneered a range of new-to-the-

world technologies – partly centred on the needs

of engineers, but also offering exceptional RF

performance through features such as automatic

interference detection and avoidance. “While

initially limited to our flagship Axient system, our

intent was always to replicate these features –

wherever possible – throughout the entire Shure

wireless portfolio. Subsequently, many of the

advanced wireless technology features

originally exclusive

to Axient are

now

58 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com August 2015

Forum

Rush Street Productions has benefitted from the higher channel capacity,

streamlined cabling and simplified set up and tear down associated with

digital audio networking for its Poker Night in America programme

The ATND971 was the first wired

microphone to transmit audio and control data together

over Audinate’s Dante network

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found across our portfolio, right down to our

consumer level options.”

Given the uncertainty of a congested RF

landscape, having a spectrally efficient

wireless system is essential – no matter what

the budget. “Everybody, including the mobile

industry, needs to recognise that spectrum is a

finite resource. If we’re not responsible, we’ll

eventually run out.”

The benefits of audio over IP for TV broadcast and productionThe transition from legacy to IT architectures

in the broadcast plant has quickly evolved

from concept to reality. From the digitisation

of the control room to gradual facility-wide IP

transitions, today’s TV operation is in the midst of

changes that are transforming – and simplifying –

broadcast and production workflows now

and into the future.

But those changes are just as viable on the

audio side. Broadcasters are increasingly looking

to audio-over-IP as a low-cost, high-performance

means of moving multichannel, low-latency

audio signals over the facility’s central IT network.

“The cost savings are immediately recognised

through an ability to use existing network

infrastructure,” states Lee Ellison, CEO, Audinate.

“In most cases, audio-over-IP displaces heavy,

expensive analogue or multicore cabling with

low-cost Cat5e, Cat6 or fibre-optic cable. This

equates to a simple, lightweight and economical

solution that accelerates return on investment

through reduced labour and infrastructure.”

Ellison says the industry should think hours,

instead of days, for installation or production

setups. “That same streamlined fibre or network

cable architecture can easily transport multiple

channels of audio from one to many points:

increasingly a requirement for multichannel

broadcasters managing signals across many

live feeds, production tasks and more. Using an

advanced digital audio networking technology

such as Dante from Audinate, a broadcaster can

easily establish a channel count that can quickly

scale to over 500 bi-directional channels on a

single cable, and thousands of channels in the

facility, all connected and easily routed over

an IP network.” He says that technologies like

Dante further excel over MADI by evolving from

point-to-point limitations to unlimited multipoint

freedom. All the connections in Dante can

be managed from a centralised computer,

as the connections are logical. “Benefits such

as flexibility in routing, multichannel capacity,

intuitive control, are among the points of

attraction for broadcast and production

companies like Microsoft Production Studios. This

facility has gradually transitioned to a facility-wide

Dante network, starting with sound design and

mixing and evolving to cross all audio production,

post and intercom applications. The low-latency,

multichannel capacity has even grown to

signal contribution over Microsoft’s SkypeTX,

using Dante to bring interview feeds into

live broadcasts distributed to cable TV

outlets and stores.

While the low-latency benefits of digital audio

networks cannot be understated for the studio,

field broadcasters like Rush Street Productions

have benefitted from the higher channel

capacity, streamlined cabling and simplified set

up and tear down associated with digital audio

networking. These benefits have simplified work

Forum

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Matthias Exner, Audio-Technica MC Patel, Emotion Systems Tuomo Tolonen, Shure UK


on the cable TV show Poker Night in America,

where the company uses a lightweight, Dante-

enabled audio flypack to distribute 26 channels

of audio at low latency.

The Dante network for the programme

captures all audio tracks in synchronisation

with video feeds, which are then mixed for the

local PA system and a live webstream. With all

multichannel audio routing and management

happening across the Cat5e infrastructure,

labour and equipment costs for live production

are minimised.

Developments in third-party compatibility for Dante-enabled microphones Audio-Technica entered the network audio

market in June 2014 with the launch of the

ATND971, the first wired microphone to transmit

audio and control data together over Audinate’s

Dante network protocol. Powered by PoE, the

ATND971 boundary mic features a programmable

user switch to control devices on the network and

a red/green LED status indicator.

Later, Audio-Technica released the ATND8677

microphone desk stand, which allows the use of

existing gooseneck mic inventories to be added

to Dante audio networks. GPIO-over-Dante

enabled control – a new network

feature developed specifically with Audio-

Technica – is among the benefits of the ATND8677,

which also features a capacitive switch and

green/red LED surround. Matthias Exner, Audio-

Technica’s business development director EMEA

reports that the increasing interest around and

requirement for networked audio has meant

continuing developments in compatibility for

Dante-enabled products. “Originally compatible

with Symetrix’s SymNet Composer v3.0, which

allowed native integration of Audio-Technica

network audio products, both the ATND971 and

ATND8677 are now supported by Biamp Systems

Forum

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Tesira v2.3 software and Bose ControlSpace

Designer software v4.3.”

The ATND971 microphone can be

incorporated into a Tesira system to provide

quick audio and control signal setup. In addition

to normal audio input controls, the integrated

processing block allows for predetermined

button and LED behaviours, as well as the option

to control both completely discretely. Each

processing block for the ATND series can accept

multiple microphone inputs, so individual units

with the same control configuration only need to

be configured in Tesira once. “Ease of integration

and interoperability will be huge drivers and

in the long term I think processing systems will

cease to exist and algorithms will run on normal

computers – specialist DSP will fade,” states Exner.

Where next for microphone technology in the TV world?“There are two major trends we are currently

witnessing in broadcasting,” states Achim

Gleissner, head of commercial management

broadcast and media at Sennheiser. “First

is the democratisation of content, which is

driven by social media, and encompasses

both the production and consumption sides.

The traditional TV broadcast is increasingly

supplemented by on-demand content which

can be watched everywhere and at any time.”

Gleissner maintains that the microphone

technology used at the production end

reflects this development, and its ‘bandwidth’

has become much wider. “You will find

expert broadcast teams, who use Sennheiser

professional equipment, but also small ‘one-man

shows’, who handle everything on their own

and usually do not come from the audio side of

things. For these users, Sennheiser has recently

launched a series of new products.”

AVX wireless microphone systems for

cameras remove the need to license the

system, to look for a suitable transmission

frequency, and to create settings required to

ensure reliable communication between the

transmitter and the receiver.

“For small productions, and as a tool for instant

news gathering, there is the MKE 2 digital. This is

a professional-quality Sennheiser mic powered

by Apogee’s award-winning A/D conversion

technology which plugs directly into an

iOS device. This is the probably the most

portable broadcasting mic solution we

currently have on offer.”

The second major trend is surround audio

in broadcast productions, and the need to

achieve surround sound in a cost-effective and

technically easy way.

“On location, production companies

would like to use existing infrastructure, and

cameramen definitely have other things to worry

about than quality surround sound capture. The

Sennheiser solution for this field of application is

Esfera, which uses a compact, easy-to-use stereo

microphone to do the job.”

These two channels are upmixed in the Esfera

processing unit anywhere in the production

workflow, creating a realistic surround sound.

While upmixes with other algorithms result in

sound problems when a 5.1 broadcast is heard

on a stereo device, Esfera will deliver the stereo

image it recorded. “I like to compare this mic

and the processing unit to the human ears and

the brain. The ears are also just stereo, and the

brain turns their signals into 3D.”


Video is an ever-evolving market, and

as viewers we’re continually looking

for faster and more convenient ways

to get the content we want. A recent Ooyala

report took an in-depth look at the viewing

habits of millions of individuals worldwide, and

our research has us convinced that video

viewing on mobile devices is going to make

up more than half of all views by 2016. That’s

not surprising given ongoing advances in

the mobile ecosystem. Manufacturers are

developing tablets and smartphones with bigger

screens than before, which make anywhere,

anytime viewing more enjoyable and are

driving increased mobile video consumption.

Developers are also producing new apps and

content designed to drive viewer engagement

and make viewing more seamless for mobile

devices, as well as ad delivery systems that are

well on their way to providing a simpler and

more personalised mobile video advertising

experience. Yet mobile video still has its pitfalls: in

fact 60 per cent of all mobile video suffers from

quality issues, device fragmentation continues

to dog mobile app developers and advertisers

are still waiting for effective mobile viewing

measures. Clearly, we need more than a little

sleight of hand for mobile video to more fully

meet the needs of viewers, content providers

and broadcasters. What’s behind some of

the challenges with mobile, and how will they

be surmounted?

A fragmented viewIt’s in advertisers’ and content owners’ best

interests to deliver video to the largest number of

devices and platforms possible while ensuring a

reliable, high-quality experience. Yet, obstacles

exist. Though it may sound simple to take a

single video clip and repurpose it for playback

on multiple devices, a lack of standards means

developers have to create a different version

for each device – a challenge to say the least.

Android devices are especially problematic.

Data Centre

Caitlin Spaan, VP marketing, Ooyala

The future of video: Mobile is becoming the majority


Data Centre

OpenSignal reported that this year developers

needed to account for at least 18,796 different

Android devices, a 60 per cent increase from the

prior year. The bottom line is that fragmentation

is a fact of life for mobile devices that’s not

going to be resolved any time soon. Publishers

and content providers need to get creative and

find solutions to address the issues inherent in

fragmentation. Fortunately, we’ve seen some

progress, with the introduction of SDKs and

applications that let developers work around

native players and deliver high quality video

playback across a variety of devices.

Just browsing?The common thinking is that if users are interested

in your content, they will install your application.

But the fact remains that there are also a lot of

folks browsing on mobile devices and coming

across content serendipitously. That leaves

smaller providers faced with the choice of where

and how to invest in mobile video delivery. If

they choose to invest in an application, there still

remains the question of which device to design

for. Screen size, inputs and user interfaces vary

dramatically across devices and require very

different approaches. The good news is that

analytics are improving all the time and

will help push targeted content to viewers.

Going forward, content discovery and

personalised experiences may help eliminate

the ‘either/or’ conundrum.

The long and short of itYahoo and other publishers are betting that

viewers will increasingly turn to their mobile

devices to watch mainstream, longer form

content; Yahoo launched Yahoo! Screen, an

offering that makes all its video content available

through a mobile app, in hopes of drawing

viewers and advertisers. Meanwhile an app,

TabletTV now lets users of Android tablets watch

and record Freeview content. Separately, EE is

building a partnership to deliver a mobile video

distribution network for the UK as part of the

company’s Mobile Video Alliance (MVA).

But how do providers really know where to

place their bets? While our recent data shows

that 53 per cent of the time spent viewing

videos on mobile was spent watching long form

content, that leaves the other half watching

short form content. Providers need to know

what’s being watched and when. For example,

if I’m a video provider should I serve ads prior to

the start of programming, or in the middle? What

happens to viewing habits if I created content

that’s a little longer? Unfortunately the answers

to those questions aren’t easily found because

measurement standards haven’t yet caught up

with the mobile ecosystem.

Coming attractionsEvidence does point to a future in which mobile

will become the main act in video and TV

consumption, and by extension, advertising.

Forward-thinking developers, content providers

and advertisers will do well to look past

today’s obstacles and envision the world in

which mobile video viewing will be as easy

as saying ‘Abracadabra’.

The television industry is currently witnessing

another evolutionary stage in its long

and varied history. The growing popularity

of watching and sharing TV online has meant

that viewing video content online has also

become a much more widespread activity

in many people’s lives, particularly the

younger demographic.

Recent years have seen a shift away from the

traditional method of viewing TV via broadcast

services. Instead users have shown a much

greater demand for content as VoD, which

allows them to watch their favourite shows when

and where they want.

Market shift: TV goes OTTIn meeting the demands of today’s television

consumer, nothing appeals more than OTT

services, many of which offer live streaming, PPV

(pay-per-view) videos, DTO (download-to-own),

and VoD, often provided on a subscription basis.

OTT providers offer consumers content through

a multitude of portable devices. Much of this

content avoids the traditional ‘linear’ release

pattern aiding to a growing consumer trend

towards ‘binge-watching’ TV and video,

whereby users will view multiple episodes, and

sometimes an entire TV series in one sitting.

The release window poses a dilemma for

both content providers (for example, the big

Hollywood studios) and service providers like

Netflix and Hulu, who know consumers expect

content as soon as possible in a form which is

easy for them to watch, where and when they

like. Netflix to some extent has influenced this

trend with the release of its original programing,

such as Orange is the New Black, seeing the

entire series released on launch day, rather than

the traditional method of individual episodes

broadcast via a scheduled basis.

OTT services have been viewed as most

established in North America and West Europe.

Juniper expects continued growth in the North

American market will see it remain as the leading

region in terms of subscriber numbers, but by

2019 it will be closely followed by the Far East,

as this region emerges with new services and

increased consumer interest.

Connected devices to aid OTT growthJuniper Research forecasts that over 84 per

cent of OTT subscriptions will be made via

connected TVs by 2019. Previously ‘dumb’ TVs

will see an upsurge in becoming ‘connected’

due to the cost-effectiveness of devices such

as Chromecast, and Amazon’s Fire TV Stick, as

well as the high uptake of games consoles and

STBs which provide preloaded services. This is in

contrast to smart TVs which currently offer poor

operating systems and user interfaces.

The past year has seen the TV industry

witness a wealth of new OTT and VoD services

launch; we recently saw NVIDIA make a

concerted effort to also gain traction in this

space with the launch of its Shield device which

looks to target both the STB and games console

market at once.

In terms of TV and video, Shield owners will

have access to the Google Play Store, as well

as applications on the device for OTT services

such as Netflix and Hulu. And for gaming, NVIDIA

provides its Grid delivery system.


Television’s evolutionData Centre

By Steffen Sorell, research analyst, Juniper Research

‘Juniper Research forecasts that over 84 per cent of OTT subscriptions will be

made via connected TVs by 2019’

The television industry is currently witnessing another evolutionary stage in its long and varied history

Network operators seek solutionsThere has been some movement to act to

counter the OTT threat on the traditional

broadcaster’s part, with Verizon offering

‘slimmed’ TV packages, and HBO providing its

own OTT service HBO Now.

Verizon’s offering means that consumers can

choose to purchase a cable subscription without

any sports channels included, making it popular

with consumers who want cheaper packages,

but hugely unpopular with sporting networks

who see a large share of their revenue from

programmatic advertising.

4K to drive OTT uptakeEven with this attempt by TV incumbents to

claw consumers back, Juniper forecasts

subscription OTT services to do markedly well

over the next four years, largely aided by the

uptake of 4K services.

Whilst key players such as Netflix and YouTube

have launched 4K services, adoption of 4K

content has been slow thus far. Juniper is

predicting this to change over the next two

years. Netflix added its 4K offering to its highest

priced subscription package last year, showing

belief that consumers are willing to pay for higher

quality content, while OTT providers are gaining

recognition as being first to supply viewers

with content in this new format. Meanwhile, 4K

TVs will continue to become more affordable,

accelerating hardware take-up.

Juniper Research forecasts that subscriptions

OTT TV providers such as Netflix will generate

$31.6 billion by 2019, up from just under

$8 billion in 2014.


Data Centre

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‘In meeting the demands of today’s television consumer, nothing appeals

more than OTT services’


The global pay-TV market is projected to

grow from more than 900 million subscribers

in 2014 to 1.21 billion by 2022, while Europe

will likely comprise 117.2 million subs by that year,

according to SNL Kagan data.

Asia should contribute the largest number

of global subs in 2022, as it did in 2014, while

cable TV is expected to continue to serve more

subscribers than either direct-to-home or IPTV

worldwide, although the latter two platforms will

continue to experience significant growth over

the coming years.

We estimate that there were more than 582

million cable TV subs globally at year-end 2014,

dwarfing the 207 million DTH subs and 109 million

IPTV subscribers. Some of the largest cable TV/

IPTV operators are in China — including the

largest of any kind, the IPTV operator China

Telecom with more than 29 million subs. Comcast

Corp in the US is the world’s largest cable

operator with 22.4 million subs as of 31 March.

The US is also home to the largest DTH provider

in the world, DIRECTV, with 20.4 million subs as

of the end of March, with Dish TV India taking

the number two spot at more than 15.8 million

subscribers. North America has the highest pay-

TV penetration regionally, followed by eastern

Europe and Asia.

Multichannel subscribers in western Europe are

currently projected to grow from 108.1 million

in 2014 to 117.2 million by 2022. The greatest

expansion will come in IPTV services, thanks to

the continued investment and development

by telcos such as Orange in France, British

Telecom in the UK and Spain’s Telefonica.

Subscribers served by cable MSOs are expected

to decline slightly over this time period as a

result of increased competition from other

multichannel operators – IPTV and DTH – as well

as the growth of online video alternatives taking

share in some markets.

However, operators across Europe are

responding to streaming competition with the

expansion of TV Everywhere and over-the- top

services of their own. For example, Sky’s Now TV

and Modern Times Group’s Viaplay are keeping

customers within those companies’ suite of

products even if those customers opt for only

the streaming services.

Operators across Europe such as the UK’s

Virgin Media, France’s Numericable–SFR,

Germany’s Deutsche Telekom AG, Denmark’s

Waoo! and Sweden’s Com Hem have integrated

Netflix into their set- top boxes. There is a notable

overlap between Netflix subs and other OTT

services as well as pay-TV services in some

markets across Europe, with Sky TV, for example,

reporting that around 40 per cent of Now TV subs

also take Netflix and 20 per cent take Amazon.

com’s Prime Instant Video.

Our data shows that broadband households

exceed multichannel households in the leading

markets of France, Germany and the UK, with

the growing gap a focus for pay-TV operators.

The aggressive rollout of triple- and quad-play

services in France has limited the difference,

but the gap is expected to increase over time.

Aggressive bundling also now characterises the

UK market, with BT and TalkTalk Telecom Group

rolling out innovative bundles to compete with

Virgin Media, which has achieved 90 per cent

penetration of its triple/quad-play homes. In fact,

in the UK there are few signs of cord cutting, with

ample room still existing for pay-TV growth.

Cable and DTH operators in the UK market are

achieving a growing penetration of connected

devices, which is driving revenue growth from

new products and services. Cable still has the

competitive edge with high-speed broadband,

while DTH provider and market pay-TV leader

Sky targets a broad reach of services and

premium exclusive content, with a big

investment in originals. IPTV players TalkTalk and

BT have been focusing in part on alleviating

price pressure via bundles to gain market share,

and they have achieved some success in selling

smaller TV bouquets.

Global pay-TV market to exceed one billion by 2017

Data Centre

By Robin Flynn, senior analyst and research director, and Mohammed Hamza, TV and video analyst, SNL Kagan

(mil.)

1,400

1,200

1,000

800

600

400

200

0

(%)

64

63

62

61

60

59

58

57

56

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Cable DTH IPTV Pay-DTT Other Pay-TV Penetration

63%63%63%

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908.9 953.3 995.1 1,035.9 1,075.01,110.7

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September 2015TVBEurope Supplements

In association with

PREVENTING CHURN

101Video intelligence

Supplementii TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015

in association with

OTT and multiscreen in today’s environment

T he role of OTT and multiscreen is increas-

ing in importance every day. In fact, for

younger generations, it is almost the way

of consuming. Over time, we won’t distinguish a

television set from what we call ‘digital devices’.

They will all simply be ‘devices’.

The industry has really turned a corner as the

predominant revenue model continues to pivot

from ad revenue to subscription revenue. In my

mind, this became a tipping point in the industry,

when many content providers realised that they

absolutely had to have a digital OTT presence.

Interestingly, this is putting more pressure on

the broadcast side of things, because there is

an increasing opportunity for churn as existing

barriers to switching providers have lowered. In

the past, if I signed up for a cable subscription,

I would sign a long-term contract and make a

commitment to that provider for an extended

period of time. In contrast, now I have the oppor-

tunity to pay for content on a monthly basis. If I’m

not happy with my online service provider, I can

easily switch: immediately. I can take advantage

of a 30-day free trial, and if I’m not happy with

that, I can go to another 30-day free trial. Add

the number of content providers coming into the

mix, and the fact that there are only so many

viewers out there, and it’s easy to see that cus-

tomer churn is a huge concern in the industry.

Improving the multiscreen experience, reducing viewer churnOne of the fascinating dynamics in the OTT

space is that providers such as Netflix and Am-

azon are attracting some of the industry’s best

writers, producers and directors by giving them

the creative freedom to produce incredibly

compelling original content. And viewers are

being asked to vote. Viewers, in particular binge

viewers, are discovering programmes in the OTT

environment that they were overlooking when

broadcast in the traditional linear fashion.

So if content availability is not an issue, what is?

I believe it’s the quality of the viewer experience.

What the industry needs is an awareness of the

quality issues that viewers are still dealing with

and an understanding of that in the context of

the OTT space. For example, if you think of the

business of television, the currency, the standard

that drove that business was ‘viewership’ and

ratings. There was third-party validation, such as

Nielsen ratings, to indicate how many people

were watching what in certain demographics,

so the industry could establish advertising pricing

based on those ratings. Content providers could

make decisions on whether or not they would

renew a programme for the following year based

on this same viewership currency.

Not so in OTT and multiscreen. In the OTT

space, the primary measure of content populari-

ty is in subscriptions and the associated

revenue. And a reliable, broadly accepted

third-party Nielsen analogue – a basic

foundation of an ad-supported monetisation

system – does not yet exist.

It’s not that Nielsen, along with others, isn’t

trying to do that. By way of example, after a

significant event such as a World Cup or Super

Bowl, when the numbers are announced by the

rights holder/broadcaster the next day – ‘Oh

this was a huge game, a huge event and we

had, in the case of the Super Bowl here in the

US, 110 or 112 million viewers who watched on

broadcast television’ – that number is

established by Nielsen and everybody agrees

on and understands what that means. Then they

say, ‘and we also broke the record of having 2.3

million unique visitors over IP, based on our

measurements.’

If the OTT industry is going to support an

ad-driven business model similar to that of

broadcast television, they need the visibility and

transparency that only an objective third party

can provide. We simply are not there yet.

Video analytics what you don’t knowwill hurt you

Kurt Michel, senior marketing director at video assurance specialist IneoQuest, examines the role of OTT and multiscreen in today’s environment, and the increasing importance of video analytics

‘If you really want actionable insights, to know what individual viewers are watching and why, you need visibility, transparency

and above all, intelligence about what is happening to content at every link in the

video delivery chain’

Kurt Michel

TVBEurope iiiSeptember 2015 www.tvbeurope.com

Supplementin association with

Viewership validation is one area where I think

OTT needs to catch up to broadcast, but it’s

important to note that OTT viewership numbers

require some critical context to have the same

kind of weight as Nielsen ratings. That context is

the quality of the viewer experience. Traditional

broadcast leverages a purpose-built network,

made expressly for video content, which is much

less complex than multiscreen OTT. This OTT distri-

bution complexity adds quality risk which the in-

dustry continues to wrestle with. And that means

that viewership numbers must be filtered through

a ‘delivered quality’ lens. As an example, if

you’re a content provider collecting real-time

viewership numbers – made possible through

digital distribution – you can see that you have

a million viewers; but then half way through the

event or content you lose 25 per cent of them.

Something is wrong. But what is wrong? Why did

they abandon? Why did you lose them? Did

the audience lose interest in the content, or did

the playback quality degrade? Did they switch

off, or drop due to buffer issues? Did you lose a

certain region, or local network, or device type?

And if so, why? Maybe it was because

a poorly packaged advertisement was

inserted into the stream, and it created

playback issues. Or maybe some part of

the network started behaving badly and

the picture started to pause or become

blocky, or ‘pixelated’, making the

content unwatchable.

Without understanding the quality issues,

without understanding that the viewers were

experiencing re-buffering or poor picture

quality, without that context, the viewership

numbers are not meaningful.

Video intelligence and quality of experienceIf you find you have a quality issue, you need

to be able to identify the root cause. The root

cause is the answer to the ‘why’ questions, and

finding that answer is the real challenge. And

you can’t get that by just using measurement

software in the player. You also need to under-

stand the quality of content (QoC); whether

the content coming from your origin looks good

and is packaged properly (in dozens of different

variations) to deliver to all those end users on

their different devices and networks. Next up in

the distribution chain is the actual delivery of the

video packets. Measurements in this area are

referred to as quality of service (QoS), and since

the demands of video streams are much higher

and require more bandwidth than pretty much

anything else in a network, the importance of

a solid QoS perspective cannot be overstated.

Finally, information can be gathered at the end

device for both QoS and the resulting viewer

response. By collecting and correlating the infor-

mation collected across the distribution system,

true understanding of the viewers’ quality of

experience (QoE) can be gained, and the video

business leaders can find the answers to the

nearly infinite number of ‘why’ questions that are

needed to effectively drive their businesses.

Quality: an end-to-end gameIf you really want actionable insights, to know

what individual viewers are watching and why,

you need visibility, transparency and above all,

intelligence about what is happening to content

at every link in the video delivery chain. Every

step, from where it originated, throughout the

entire network, and ultimately to each individual

device’s playback software, contributes to the

quality of the experience. Traditional broadcast

networks built in this capability. It is part of the

‘broadcast quality’ foundation.

OTT has a vast opportunity to meet the de-

mands of global viewers. Those demands are

driving the industry faster than many expected.

But if we are to achieve a level of quality and

reliability that approaches the gold standard of

‘broadcast’ in the complexity of an unmanaged,

multivendor distribution ecosystem, the concept

of end-to-end analytics with clear demarcation

points and key quality indicators must be em-

braced. And those key quality indicators and the

knowledge gained would be made accessible

to the video business operators, resulting in a true

‘currency of quality’. And in this case, that knowl-

edge truly is the power that will propel the OTT

industry to ‘broadcast quality’ and beyond.

‘Without understanding the quality issues, without understanding that the viewers were

experiencing re-buffering or poor picture quality, without that context, the viewership

numbers are not meaningful’

Supplementiv TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015

in association with

T he OTT industry is being propelled forward

at a rate that few, if any, in the industry

expected. It is being driven primarily by

viewer demands, and the industry has respond-

ed with new innovations in compression and

delivery, faster device development, and an

explosion of available content.

Meanwhile, viewer expectations for quality,

set over 50 years by the broadcast industry,

present an enormous challenge for the online

video sector. OTT is also trying to address some

of the same challenges that the broadcast

industry faced over that half-century, but in less

than a decade. For example, the functional

silos in the traditional distribution network have

been supplanted by multiple vendors providing

services together in the unmanaged media

distribution path. In addition, consumer driven

growth continues. According to Ray Gilmartin

of Akamai Technologies, publisher of the State

of the Internet report, “We are estimating that

in order to meet the future quality expectations

for OTT as video progresses to 4K and 8K, the

industry will require 1000x the capacity it has

today. Given this projection, the challenges are

daunting to ensure the future of broadcast-like

experiences for OTT.”

In this context, all of them spoke to the need

for a more flexible, more open multi-vendor distri-

bution ecosystem balanced with and defined by

clear demarcation points.

More importantly, however, was their unani-

mous agreement on the need for open, accessi-

ble KPIs (key performance indicators) supported

by consistent and transparent quality measure-

ment at every one of these demarcation points

in order for the system to deliver on the enor-

mous business promise of OTT video.

Keith Wymbs of Elemental Technologies told

TVBEurope: “Consumers don’t stand still. We

must meet their expectations, and the only way

to do that is via a software-defined video (SDV)

approach that allows the industry to change at

the speed of viewer demand.”

Deepak Das of VisualOn noted that there is a

“shared responsibility of everyone in the ecosys-

tem to create appropriate handoff mechanisms

with specific criteria to handle the complexity of

the OTT delivery system.”

These and other leaders in the OTT industry are

working to improve their respective domains

within the streaming distribution pipeline. In-

creasingly, they are leveraging software-based

solutions that support the rapid innovation that

has driven the success of OTT thus far. However,

this next stage in the maturity of OTT as a viable

business model will require greater collabora-

tion to improve video quality and consistency

across the system as a whole. The lynchpin: an

agreed-upon set of standards for quality at each

stage of the pipeline.

TVBEurope spoke to three major players in the OTT end-to-end video distribution space: senior management from Elemental Technologies, representing video processing and origin services; Akamai Technologies, representing the content delivery network; and VisualOn, representing device video player technologies.

Each gave their perspective on how the industry can drive toward the broadcast-quality viewer experience their audiences expect in the brave new world of OTT, and the role that ecosystem partners play in that growth.

‘Viewer expectations for quality, set over 50 years by the broadcast industry,

present an enormous challenge for the online video sector’

OTT and video quality Where content, complexity and viewer expectations collide

Ray Gilmartinsenior director, product marketing, media,Akamai Technologies, the global leader in content delivery network (CDN) services

Keith Wymbschief marketing officerElemental Technologies, the leading supplier of software-defined video solutions for multiscreen content delivery

Deepak Das, senior director of marketingVisualOn, Inc., a multimedia software company that enables video and audio across connected devices

How did IneoQuest become involved with the OTT sector?

IneoQuest [IQ] has been around for about 14

years. We spent the fi rst eight years producing

the fi rst video-quality assurance solutions for

IPTV and cable video deployments, and in that

time we worked with the majority of the leading

telecommunication and cable companies

around the world. Some of these companies

were the pioneers in adaptive streaming video

deployments, and asked if we could help them

to learn why some services weren’t working.

Since we offered video analytics at that point,

we applied the tools we had to see what we

could do. We put our probes and solutions in

place, put our best engineers on the problems,

and eventually developed a new set of metrics

that actually started to make some kind of sense

out of the issues facing HTTP delivery of adaptive

video, such as start-up problems and critical

delivery timing of the video packets.

As a result of these early collaborations, over

the last six years we have become a leading

provider of service assurance and analytics

solutions for adaptive media delivery quality.

We work with the majority of the operators today

with video headends and across the HTTP deliv-

ery system to provide end-to-end monitoring of

those services.

What do you see as the main challenges in the OTT sector today?I like to think about this by relating back to the

architecture of IPTV. If you look at the original lin-

ear IPTV video delivery via broadband or cable,

it was all end-to-end MPEG transport streams. In

that system, you can you look at MPEG packets

all the way through the network – whether on

ASI at the headend, in the IP core network or

going over the last mile DSL, cable or whatever

it happens to be. But with HTTP-based adaptive

video, the model is completely different. The vid-

eo starts in one original format, and is converted

into many different forms based on what device

the viewer is using, the software/apps on that de-

vice, the quality of the connection it has, and the

demands of the content itself. Converting and

managing all of these different formats, bitrates,

and protocols can introduce unique, complex

problems. To complicate things further, between

the content delivery networks (CDNs) and the

viewer devices there are multiple different types

of broadband access networks; so the video

could be carried via cable, xDSL, fi bre (xPON), a

public Wi-Fi or WiMax infrastructure, or over a mo-

bile infrastructure using 3G, 4G or LTE. And then

of course there is the domestic Wi-Fi network,

which is often used to extend these other access

network connections within the viewer’s home.

All of these different ‘last mile’ technologies

have the potential to affect quality levels and

viewer experience.

We have basically moved from a world of

controlled video delivery where everything was

managed by one or a few entities from the hea-

dend through the core network, the broadband

pipe and out to the set-top box, to a world of

multiple different networks (the internet), vendor

silos, protocols, technologies and bit rates of the

same video stream to many, many devices. It’s

a huge change that is constantly increasing the

complexity of delivering video.

How are you specifi cally addressing those challenges?For the past few years, we have been applying

our understanding of packet-based video

measurement to create tools and services

that provide an end-to-end perspective for

HTTP adaptive video streams, with a focus

on the unique needs and quality indicators

across different parts of the delivery chain.

Supplementvi TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015

in association with

To discuss IneoQuest’s perspective on the world of OTT, and the likely road ahead for the wider video industry, TVBEurope sat down with the company’s VP of corporate strategy, Stuart Newton

Over the top, into the future

TVBEurope viiSeptember 2015 www.tvbeurope.com

Supplementin association with

The headend or ‘origin’ is the fi rst part to get

right because if you don’t, every viewer will

be affected. So we started by developing OTT

headend solutions which can monitor and

compare the incoming and transcoded bit

rate streams, and then we moved our focus

to the needs of publishing points, post-origin,

intra CDN, post cache, and then eventually

produced a cloud-based active testing solution

post CDN. Over time we have expanded these

passive monitoring and active testing solutions,

and recently added the ability to collect video

quality analytics and viewer response from

the end device’s player itself, completing our

portfolio’s end-to-end measurement capability

across the video delivery network.

Why are video analytics a core requirement for OTT?Video analytics are a core requirement for any

video delivery service, whether it’s IPTV, cable,

satellite, or OTT. Without them, the provider is

fl ying blind. Video will reveal issues in a network

like no other data: it is extremely time-sensitive,

whether linear or adaptive. If you don’t deliver

video in a precise fashion to keep the end-play-

er buffers full, viewers will get a black screen,

rotating rebuffer symbol, or another fault that

makes people complain (often in social media),

demand their money back, or in arguably the

worst case, simply cancel their subscription. It’s

an absolute imperative to have the ability to

gather video analytics from the end-to-end of

the chain of video delivery.

More recently, as the industry has matured,

advanced customer experience management

(CEM) is gaining increased attention. Video ser-

vice providers want to put a much stronger focus

on reducing churn and improving their brand

recognition for video delivery. To do that, they

need a much better view of which customers

are affected and when. Being able to profi le

the audience – and any individual viewer expe-

rience – in real time across different geographies

based on network, device, player, and many

other factors leads to much more effi cient, timely

problem resolution.

Are broadcasters giving enough serious thought to their multiscreen services? Are they missing out on opportunities to monetise their offerings?I think broadcasters are giving a lot of serious

thought to this, and many have been playing

with multiscreen services for the last few years.

It’s evident to me from some of the services that

I’ve seen – and in conversations with colleagues

and friends – that you get a very clear picture,

very quickly, about which services are good and

which aren’t. You can see the broadcasters that

have put a bigger focus on it now. Some of

those broadcasters have been offering these

additional OTT/multiscreen services for free until

now, but as they improve the quality and start

rolling out other content, they are going to

want to charge for it.

In fact, last year I gave a presentation on mon-

etising the video experience. It was about the

monetisation cycle where you really need to do

the service assurance and ensure the delivery of

the content before you can go on to fi ne tuning

the content, advertising, and providing addi-

tional services. And this is a dynamic problem,

because as you are attracting new subscribers,

you affect the performance of the delivery infra-

structure. It requires awareness and infrastructure

fl exibility. And we have found over the years is

that the biggest concern for many operators is

how to deliver the video with the right quality

consistently. Even though they want to know who

is watching on what device in order to better

monetise, it is all a waste of time and money

if the viewer’s video quality is poor. Consistent

delivery quality is always ‘step one’.

We have seen several content providers and

operators who were initially focused on obtaining

the behavioural data measurement tools who

rapidly performed a U-turn and refocused on

operational service assurance data as a priority.

Over the past few years, we’ve seen a huge

learning curve for the OTT industry, resulting in

greater focus on quality assurance. So we offer a

comprehensive analytics solution: both foun-

dational service assurance tools, as well as the

audience behavioural tools.

Looking to the future: where will this sector be in three to fi ve years’ time?It’s going to be fascinating. I don’t think the rate

of innovation is going to change; potentially, it’s

only going to increase. I think there are three ma-

jor topics that video is going to be affected by,

and be attracted to, over the next few years.

The fi rst is advanced customer experience:

making sure you reduce churn, generate ex-

cellent brand awareness, and provide the best

experience you can. I think real-time analytics

will be key to enabling that kind of future.

Secondly, network-function virtualisation (NFV)

is going to be realistically deployed in a two to

fi ve-year timescale. If video service providers

want to provide future services that are going

to be highly adaptable and dynamic, then NFV

is certainly going to be employed alongside

software-defi ned networking (SDN) for video

services. Again, real-time analytics is going to

be a critical part of the control and feedback

loop to enable that.

On a third level, there is the enormous fore-

casted growth of video over mobile. The mobile

operators deliver a lot of free OTT content today,

but as the amount of premium content grows,

customer expectations will rise. Those mobile op-

erators will need the same level of visibility as the

traditional IPTV and cable operators to ensure

solid service delivery and SLA compliance.

These three areas are not mutually exclusive. If

you’re a video service provider, you will need to

be delivering HTTP-based video over mobile and

fi xed infrastructures in the next several years. You

will be affected in both fi xed and mobile by the

move to NFV and SDN, and there is only going to

be increased pressure on customer experience

management. We are evolving for all of these,

and have solutions to cover all three aspects as

they start to converge and merge.

It will be an exciting future. Any one of these

topics is a huge consideration in itself. As a com-

pany, we’ve embraced a signifi cant number of

new technologies and capabilities in virtualis-

ation, mobile delivery and analytics in order to

prepare: it’s certainly going to be an interesting

few years ahead.

“As a company, we’ve embraced a signifi cant number of new technologies and capabilities

in virtualisation, mobile delivery and analytics in order to prepare: it’s certainly

going to be an interesting few years ahead”

Visit IneoQuest at

IBC at Stand 3.A23 Hall 3

tvbe september 2015

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