RTS Television
Adrian Pennington looks at the big technology trends that will dominate
September’s International Broadcasting Convention
September’s
International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) will mark the transition
from hype to reality for a wide range of trans- formative new
technologies. Attendees of the week-long broadcasting conference and
exhibition in Amsterdam will be able to assess the growing impact of
Ultra- HDTV, big data and Cloud computing.
It
is no coincidence that IBC has themed its entire conference as “The
future of media in an age of disruption”.
The
hardware to make programmes in the 4K version of Ultra-HDTV is now
available, albeit at a hefty price. In the US, DirecTV has announced
that it will follow Netflix into making Ultra-HDTV shows for the
video-on-demand market. In the UK, BT TV has unveiled BT Sport Ultra
HD, the first 4K channel in Europe.
Live
4K production became a practical possibility even more recently, with
the arrival of cameras that can slot into existing outside broadcast
workflows and use standard zoom lenses. All the main manufacturers –
FOR-A, Grass Valley, Panasonic and Sony – have announced suitable
models in the course of this year, with BT selecting the Sony version
to shoot its live Ultra-HD work.
One
element of the traditional camera chain that is still missing in 4K
is live coverage from wireless cameras. Existing 4K transmitters are
simply too bulky to be mounted on a hand-held camera and the video
signal latency (the delay while the signal is processed) is still too
great to sync reliably with audio.
But
that will change, as it did with HDTV, which suffered the same
difficulties in its infancy, and possibly as soon as IBC.
With
Futuresource Consulting predicting that 20% of UK homes will have a
4K-capable TV by 2018, a business case can be made for offering 4K
content, if only to reduce churn among pay-TV subscribers.
Having
made big inroads into media archiving and distribution, Cloud
computing is now pushing into non-live TV production. Cloud workflows
rely on transporting video as packets of data over internet protocol
(IP) networks.
The
ability to repurpose and deliver content to multiple screens more
efficiently than with the bespoke equipment and tape-based workflows
of old has been embraced on an enterprise-wide scale at Italy’s
RAI, France’s Canal+ and Disney/ABC. All three companies will share
their experiences in conference sessions at IBC.
The
last step is live production. No longer an experiment, this is the
most fundamental technical change to sweep broadcast in decades.
Expect the first IP live production technology to be available to buy
on the IBC exhibition floor.
Big
data is another buzz phrase that has been translated into genuine TV
currency. The traditional, pre-sold, 30-second spot advert is under
threat from real-time, automated ad trading based on big data about
viewers.
Channel
4, one of the first broadcasters to introduce programmatic
advertising, will share its experience at the IBC conference. Twitter
will talk about how social media can trigger content discovery to
create a new personalised programme guide.
One
technology whose transformative potential remains the stuff of
speculation, with only conflicting guestimates as to its likely
commercial impact, is virtual reality (VR).
Even
so, the format’s promise has caught the imagination, and IBC is
reflecting this with a series of technology exhibits in its Future
Zone, on the exhibition floor, and in the conference. For the latter,
the focus is very much on VR – and its sibling, augmented reality –
as a new creative storytelling medium.
There’s
no doubt that VR content is sufficiently different to conventional
programmes for it to be labelled a disruptive technology.
So,
too, is the “internet of things”, the machine-to-machine
communications network that is just beginning to seep into
broadcasters’ business plans. For example, video content streamed
to a home could be modi- fied in response to data received from
web-connected health and lifestyle- related gadgets in that building.
IBC
will look at the threat to traditional broadcasters from content
distributed by the likes of Netflix, YouTube and Amazon over the open
internet as an OTT (over-the-top) service. One conference session
poses the question, “Is video-on-demand the new broadcasting gold?”
Another
session asks: “Is OTT simply broadcast rebooted?” The rhetoric
behind these is clear. Over-the-top video could simply be
broadcasting as we know it from now on.
Ultra-HDTV
The pipeline starts to fill
Even
before the first generation of Ultra-HDTV – 4K – has had its
problems ironed out, equipment for the next generation is on its way.
Ultra-HDTV
8K – offering 16 times the resolution of HD – cameras and
post-production equipment are being pushed by vendors such as Ikegami
and Quantel. They have one eye on feature film production and the
other on the Japanese domestic market.
Japanese
broadcaster NHK is committed to adding 8K transmission by 2018, and
the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games will be covered in both
Ultra-HD 4K and 8K.
One
of the bodies shaping the development of Ultra-HDTV is the Ultra-HD
Forum, an alliance of manufacturers that includes Dolby, Ericsson, LG
and Sony.
‘Ultra-HDTV
is now entering a phase where content, technology and consumer
experience have to be aligned,’ says the forum’s President,
Thierry Fautier.
The
forum is establishing guidelines for the implementation of a broad
range of new Ultra-HD technologies.
Abbreviations
that we can expect to see stickered on consumer kit in the near
future include WCG (wide colour gamut), HDR (high dynamic range), HFR
(high frame rate) and NGA (next generation audio.
An
indication of the importance of HDR is that IBC has awarded its 2015
Conference Prize to a paper from two BBC R&D staffers, Andrew
Cotton and Tim Borer, for their report, ‘A display- independent,
high-dynamic-range television system’.
Production
Sports producers look for their 10%
The
value of sport in driving pay-TV businesses is evident in the recent
deals struck by BT Sport, which landed Cham- pions League soccer from
this season, and Discovery, which gained exclusive rights to the
Olympics in Europe from 2022.
Both
will feature prominently at IBC, with President of Discovery Networks
International JB Perrette and Delia Bushell, Managing Director of BT
TV and BT Sport, giving timely keynotes.
‘[Although]
90% of the technology we use is standard issue and established,’
says James Abraham, Director of Digital Strategy at Sunset+Vine
Digital, ‘it’s how you weave in that 10% that makes the
difference.’
His
company broadcasts the Henley Royal Regatta using rugged, lightweight
GoPro cameras on rowing boats and on drones over the Thames.
‘There’s
always a lot of new stuff, but the tricky bit is deciding what to use
and where to use it in an editorially relevant way,’ adds Abraham.
Gadgets
aside, most of the innovation has been in the way in which live
sports are presented digitally. Since London 2012, it is clear that
the trend is for international sports events such as the Olympics to
be consumed less on free-to-air, linear TV than on streams to
mobiles, where viewers can pick and choose content, including camera
angles, of their choice.
Sports
programming that is distributed over the open internet is
characterised as an OTT (over the top) service.
The
production and packaging of sports offerings such as YouTube channel
Copa90 and Whistle Sports (part-owned by Sky) will be discussed at
IBC by executives from Major League Baseball and digital consultancy
Seven League.
Data
More Cloud on the horizon
Cloud computing is beginning to make significant inroads into certain genres of television production.
Two
genres that particularly benefit from off-site, scalable computing
resources and data storage are news reporting and observational
documentaries.
The
production workflows that make best use of the Cloud are
characterised by the sifting of large amounts of footage to build
storylines and the need to get on air fast.
Manufacturer
LiveU targets the news gathering market. The specialist in IP-based,
live video services is contin- uing to construct its Cloud network
for hosting video captured by roving news crews on wireless cameras.
Panasonic
camcorders offer a live video uplink to LiveU’s Cloud platform, the
same platform used by Sky in May to live stream 150 feeds on election
night in the UK.
Forscene
and Aframe are among the vendors renting Cloud-based editing and
review services to programme-makers. At IBC, film-maker Paul Kittel
will explain how he transferred footage direct from camera into the
Cloud and whittled down thousands of hours for Channel 4’s Born
Naughty? series.
Shooting
Drones get their own aviary
One of the most dramatic innovations to enter the mainstream over the past year is the drone. Affordable and (relatively) easily controlled miniature flying machines, coupled with a new breed of small HDTV and Ultra-HDTV cameras, have created a new tool that can capture stunning aerial viewpoints.
But
a drone sitting on an exhibition stand isn’t that exciting, so IBC
visitors will be able to see them in action in the Drop Zone, a
‘large outdoor flying cage’.
‘Imagine
console-type camera angles, such as tracking overhead coverage of a
football match or following a golf ball as the golfer hits it,’
suggests Jon Hurndall, co-founder of drone operator Batcam. Fox
Sports used drones to cover the US Open golf for the first time this
June.
Operators
are also testing the practicality of carrying heavier, high-speed
cameras, such as the Panasonic Vari- cam 4K or Phantom Flex4K, for
super-slow-motion shots.
‘Drones
are opening up new sports, such as mountain biking or surfing, which
TV has not been able to cover before [as easily],’ says Jeremy
Braben, owner of Helicopter Film Services.
IP
communication Signal problems cause delay
The migration to
Ultra-HDTV production is intimately linked to the IP (inter- net
protocol) communications standard that is ubiquitous in the IT
industry.
IP
is less reliable than the broad- casting industry’s existing
connectivity standard, SDI (serial digital interface).
However,
a single SDI cable cannot handle the volume of data required by
Ultra-HDTV, which, in its 4K incarnation, is at least four times
greater than that used in HDTV.
Transporting
this data along a single gigabit ethernet cable using IP is a lot
more efficient than routing it through four parallel SDI cables.
The
trouble with IP in a live television environment boils down to
timing. With SDI, engineers can guarantee that video emanating from
one source (a camera, say) will arrive in sync at a particular end
point, such as a vision mixer. This cannot be said about IP with the
same degree of assurance.
‘It
is much more difficult to see what’s going on in IP,’ says Tim
Felstead, Head of Product Marketing at Quantel Snell. ‘Where SDI
routers were very reliable, IP systems are more opaque. This creates
risk and a lack of confidence.’
The
cost advantages of IP are not limited to the price of cabling.
Instead of ripping out and replacing equipment every time there’s a
demand for new formats, an IP infrastructure can scale to accommodate
leaps in frame rate or resolution, to Ultra-HDTV 8K and to anything
beyond or in between.
Another
cost saving is live, remote production. At IBC, equipment service
provider Gearhouse Broadcast will be demonstrating this by sending HD
footage down a single 10Gb ethernet connection and editing the
pictures on an IP-enabled switcher from EVS.
‘We’re
increasingly being asked about remote production by customers,’
says Ed Tischler, Gearhouse’s Head of Projects. ‘It’s still
very early days, but new technology means that we’re now in a
position to offer remote production as a workable solution.’
Since
live production is subject to on-the-fly changes to complex material
– a late-breaking news story that includes a satellite link, for
instance – it could be the best part of a decade before risk-averse
broadcasters consign SDI to history.
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