SVG Europe
Taking stock of the latest technological changes as 2017
draws to a close, SVG Europe found NEP UK’s Keith Lane (VP Client Services) and
Simon Moorhead (MD) to be in expansive mood as they considered the present and
future potential of VR, the outlook for the OB business as a whole, and its own
current progress with regards to IP workflow implementation.
Live VR has yet to take off as some predicted it might. What
will it take for it to really go commercial?
Keith Lane: We have been involved in productions where
live VR has been used to bring an immersive view point to the consumer, it does
have an audience but can have a limiting feel due to the restriction in the
number of angles and content that can be captured.
The technology of capture and delivery has improved and
continues to do so, as a result VR is being considered more by rights holders
and production teams. It needs to be complementary to the main broadcast but
also add an enhancement to the coverage, an insight that allows the consumer to
really experience the event from a different perspective and with additional
content.
The momentum is picking up but it will still take time to
hit the masses. The funding for this experience is often led by consumer tech
businesses. The next big step is to establish a financial case by a broadcaster
or rights holder that makes VR a live regular product, along with what the
consumer wants and values and is prepared to pay for.
We are now constructing two IP-based trucks available in
Spring 2018 based around SAM infrastructure, Arista routers, Calrec sound desks
and SAM visions mixers. Our IP-based trucks will also be capable of 2110
operation.
We are also in the process of constructing a fully redundant
IP-based fly pack system capable of supporting 15 galleries plus and providing
feeds to other rights holding broadcasters.
Simon Moorhead: VR is undoubtedly a broadcast concept
that has piqued audience interest; for gamers, being immersed in a virtual
setting is surely the ultimate in participation and experience. The ability to
harness live VR in a broadcast context is one of the most transformational
advances for the audience – being fully immersed, virtually, into a live event,
be it sport, music or entertainment brings the viewer directly into the venue
and feeling closer to the performance.
To achieve this augmentation of the live event requires a
robust video delivery connection that can cope with the bandwidth requirement,
ensuring minimal latency and consistency of video relay, and this is where the
broadcaster is at the mercy of the viewers’ data connectivity or, more
specifically, the ability of the internet service provider to super-serve this
new broadcast medium.
For these reasons, I see that the broadcasters need to feel
confident in the delivery platform, the potential for mass consumption by the
potential available audience, and their willingness to either pay for this
enhanced experience or have their experience impinged with hard-coded
advertising.
Is the OB business becoming increasingly polarised between
major sports events requiring large trucks and sizeable crew at venue and a
more slimmed down and remote style of production over IP?
Lane: The type and scale of production will dictate to
a degree the choice of equipment and manpower on site; as we see more flexible
connectivity being made available the opportunity to do ‘remote/at home’
productions will increase.
Costs are increasing and budgets are getting tighter but the
need to keep or even improve production output against those constraints see us
adapting what we provide. Remote productions aren’t new, the decisions
are often based on what and how much you ‘remote’ your operation away from the
event. Now that the bandwidth and low latency networks are becoming more
attainable this will be the key to unlock this workflow more.
The opportunity for broadcasters to decentralise their
operation, where different parts of the production can be in different regions,
will be high on the agenda of many of them. We need to be flexible in our
offering. The OB business needs to keep agile and look to provide different
production environments to clients, whether that be large trucks and fly packs for
large events or small quickly deployable units that can reduce time and
increase efficiency and provide discreet sources if required and on pass to
that IP network.
Moorhead: In my personal experience, I don’t think so.
At NEP in the UK, we very much cater for our client’s specific requirements and
delivering their technical/operational workflow. We work with our clients to
tailor a bespoke solution, which meets both their editorial and budgetary
objectives. What continues to be a theme is that clients like to have an OB
truck and/or flypack broadcast solution coupled with the full complement of
crew required to deliver their sporting event.
Where possible, programme makers tend to prefer being as
close to the action as possible, ensuring that they faithfully translate and
broadcast every facet of the event, maximising on the peripheral benefits of
location production to give the audience an in-depth experience which is both
immersive and editorially superior to that of a ticket holder in the crowd.
There is no doubt that location production affords the
programme maker and their production teams to cast the net wide and deep,
enabling the almost seamless capture and dissemination of the build-up to the
event, breaking news and behind the scenes developments.
Whilst there has been investigation and discussion with some
clients around the concept of remote production workflows, this is always
balanced against the potential loss of the qualitative benefits associated with
location production, as discussed above. In some circumstances where geography
and the associated costs of logistics impact significantly the
quantitative/budgetary objective – remote is certainly becoming a workflow that
is being closely examined and considered. However, where this relates to domestic
event coverage, clients don’t (currently) seem to be sufficiently swayed by any
potential economies over the qualitative benefits of location production.
What impact is the delay in standardising IP and HDR having
on your equipment purchasing decisions?
Keith Lane: When we approached the rebuild of our
trucks and fly packs after the fire, we didn’t feel IP was mature enough for us
to commit to. We needed to keep the flexibility and functionality that SDI has
given us. Admittedly the number of sources required for UHD did make the sheer
scale of the infrastructure challenging but doable.
Now that the first few standards in SMPTE ST2110 have been
agreed, we can see the adoption being much easier. The ability to carry audio,
video and data and to separate them out now allows us to provide a workflow
that isn’t restricted and far more scalable, particularly when we move to HDR
and HFR.
The next step for the UHD productions we do will probably be
HDR. There is still a limited amount of equipment out on the market, although
this has improved over the last 12 months. Our decisions on equipment to
support HDR and SDR was difficult to make then, monitoring, conversion as an
example. There is a better understanding of the requirement to support HDR and
to produce an acceptable SDR image as well, that workflow and equipment choice
will still be a challenge in 2018.
Finally, how has the appetite for UHD developed during 2017
and how do you anticipate this will change looking ahead?
Lane: UHD has continued to be a big part of our
operations. We continue to provide facilities for Sky Sports EPL coverage which
is 124 games a season. The appetite for UHD is increasing, we have had a few
additional events we covered this year. We took the trucks down to the Allianz
stadium in Turin to cover Juventus v AC Milan in March this year; this was a
joint production between Sky Italia, Juventus and Serie A.
The demand at the moment is really driven through the
broadcasters who have a means to transmit UHD. That said, we are seeing more
rights holders and requests from production companies who need to consider UHD
for their broadcast partners who do have a requirement for UHD.
