AVOD is ready for primetime

CSI 

cover story p8 https://www.csimagazine.com/eblast/Digital_Editions/April2020/CSI-April2020-DigitalEdition.pdf

The future of TV looks a lot like the TV of old. Ad-supported, premium content reconfigured with the measurement and targeting capacities of the digital world.

Many analysts predict that 2020 will be the year of ad supported VOD as ad funded models start to build scale and roll-out internationally. DTV Research says AVOD will grow at 17% through 2024, from revenues of $36 billion in 2018 to $87 billion in 2024.

“AVOD is coming, and it’s going to make its mark on the VOD landscape rapidly,” declares Ampere Analysis director Guy Bisson. “AVOD services are following a well-trodden path with an early reliance on older content, but as their market position grows we can expect them to begin acquiring newer content and even move into original production activity as they battle for eyeballs in an increasingly crowded market.”

Facebook and YouTube are expected to continue leading the market in the US, followed by Hulu, Roku and Lionsgate-backed Tubi, all which will carve a greater slice of market share, according to IHS Markit. Content from UK indie All3Media will soon being offered through a new AVOD from Cinedigm.

In Europe, key services include ITV Hub (UK), Joyn (run by Discovery and ProSieben.Sat.1) in Germany with territory expansion planned and Spain’s Rakuten TV. ViacomCBS has landed Pluto TV across Europe on Android and IoS devices. Tubi, which records 25 million monthly active users, has an imminent UK launch, part of an international push which includes a kids service.

Other notable international AVODs include Sony Crackle and Amazon’s IMDb-affiliated Freedive but it is NBC Universal’s Peacock that is expected to supercharge the AVOD market. Launching in April, the hybrid SVOD/AVOD service, will prompt a surge in online video add.

To date, [online ads] have remained relatively small, even in developed markets like the U.S. where 27.2% of online ad spend is on video, states Ampere. Now, IHS Markit predicts AVOD opportunities will lift U.S. online video ad revenues to $27 billion by 2023.

Why AVOD now?

It’s the proverbial perfect storm which is giving AVOD wings. One reason is market saturation with SVOD which is not only pushing content prices sky high but maxing out consumer wallets. A recent The Trade Desk study [http://videoadnews.com/2019/11/14/the-uk-is-quickly-reaching-its-svod-saturation-point/] revealed that Brits are willing to pay around £20 a month for streaming subscriptions. An amount that’s easily covered when more than two services are used.

“There is a very high market potential even if in Europe it is still at an early stage,” says Olivier Jollet, MD Europe at Pluto TV. “Part of the reason is, that in Europe, free to air television is common – unlike in the U.S. – which is why an ad-supported model with no subscription fees or registration is more familiar than a SVOD one. Consumers are more and more willing to look into easy access AVODs and are likely to stick if they find an appealing, unique offering.”

According to The Trade Desk, 59% of consumers in the UK are willing to accept ads in exchange for no subscription fees.

“Consumer openness to AVOD is growing exponentially as they weigh the cost-to-benefit ratio of either sticking with ads or subscribing to a platform,” says Antonio Corrado, CEO at video delivery network, Mainstreaming.

The race for premium exclusive content is also exhausting SVOD contenders. Netflix may have over 167 million subs worldwide but is billions of dollars in debt. “The cost of content acquisition cannot be subsidised by subscription models,” says Ralf Jacob, President, Verizon Media Platform. “Consequently, we will see more AVOD services and models blending free with pay.”

At the same time, broadcasters want to maximise return on investment in their archives to reach as wide an audience as possible. In this sense, removing the financial barrier to entry of a subscription from audiences has the potential to increase viewership, making AVOD an attractive model.  Often associated with low quality or even UGC content, one key in the success of AVOD models is quality content.

Ampere Analysis observes that as SVOD services shift towards originals and new content acquisitions this has created an opportunity for AVOD providers to focus on older catalogue titles. Tubi, for example, boasts 12,000 movies and TV shows, “more than double in size to Netflix.”

In doing so, providers are facing a perennial problem. “If you are working across different territories reaching different demographics then one size doesn’t work,” says Adam Davies, product manager for Synamedia. “You need flexibility to fit the service to the demographic and territory. Therefore, you need to make sure the ads fit.”

Sky AdSmart, which uses key capabilities from Synamedia to pinpoint audiences, revealed that addressable TV cuts channel switching by 48% and boosts ad recall by 49%.

“When ads are relevant users seem to accept it better,” says Davies. “AVOD will take off when advertising becomes relevant and focused. If you’re just banging out ads in front of content it won’t drive engagement. If you can be targeted, engagement goes up, the value of the ad goes up, you can charge more for it and you can reduce the ad load.”

The Trading Desk’s survey indicates a consumer willingness for streaming services supported by ads particularly if the format and pacing of commercial breaks differ from traditional TV content.

“Consumers are willing to view ads if it means their subscription costs go down, even more so if those ads are relevant to their interests and are just not the same ads repeated,” confirms Brian Stempeck, chief strategy officer. “This indicates that ads will fund the future of streaming TV, and that broadcasters and advertisers have an opportunity to improve the advertising experience in a way that simply is not possible with linear TV.”

Where TV sold itself on metrics such as the estimated size of its audience, AVOD is increasingly able to accurately quantify audiences, creating better ROI and greater accountability.

“While TV needs to fit into the mass market, AVOD models can go to special interest and offer a high value environment for advertisers and users alike,” says Jollet. “It is probably the biggest difference in the business model with traditional TV.”

Multi-tiered pricing models offer audiences the flexibility to choose which package works best for their viewing needs and cost limitations.

“By providing your audience with the power to decide how they want to pay for your content (and how much), you can make your OTT service engage more viewers—and optimise your revenue by leveraging more points along the demand curve,” says Lexie Knauer, Product Marketing Manager, Brightcove.

It’s all about data

Calling AVOD a “gold rush” IHS senior research analyst Sarah Henschel says, “ultimately, the winners and losers will be determined not only by content, but also by data strategies and user acquisition.”

“What’s really important in terms of data management is putting control in the right hands,” says Chris Gordon, VP, Global Sales, OTT & Targeted Delivery, Imagine Communications. “That means the ability to manage which data to send to which part of the ecosystem and which to obscure – to protect and safeguard. We all recognize that data is valuable, but it can’t be a data free-for-all. Using the data is important but it’s just as important to manage who gets access to that data.”

Ad-loading should be managed dynamically. “Not every piece of content is the same, not every user is the same, not every daypart is the same,” says Gordon. “You need the tools to manage ad loads dynamically so they are appropriate to the particular viewing session.”

Understanding audience demographic information as well as viewing preferences can drive up the demand and CPM value of the provider’s inventory while ensuring viewers are seeing the most relevant ads at the right frequency.

“The best strategy is to facilitate active consent to collect first-party subscriber data to target against for the viewer’s benefit,” says Knauer. “If that’s not available, there are still strategies to mitigate this challenge. In a GDPR restricted cookieless environment, a combination of IP address and user agents can be used to create a unique identifier (UID). Depending on the level of privacy restrictions, that identifier may need to be hashed. This can be accomplished client-side or server-side using a measurement SDK. Buying third party data from entities like Nielson, Barb or Kantar ratings is always an option as well.”

Jacob describes Verizon Media’s ad platform as a ‘Switzerland in the ad world’ whose momentum is gaining over that of Google and Facebook; “Ads will be contextual, based on factors like search keywords, not cookies or browsing history,” he says.

Pluto TV offers a TV-like inventory “with a focus on brand safety and awareness” and is additionally able to target viewers based on a combination of first, second and third party data as well as contextual and environmental targeting.

However, companies aiming to monetise online video content through advertising now face an extra layer of complexity due to the requirements for solid ad-tech sales and data strategies, along with content and user acquisition.

“Having a common measurement between the AVOD players, would help gaining trust from the advertisers and from the agencies,” Jollet says. “We know that some of our competitors are using different calculations, which are misleading for advertisers.”

He adds, “The worst thing for a user is to see the ‘traditional’ black screen between content and ads. This happens, when an ad break arrives, and the product is calling the ad servers. Even if those calls are taking place in milliseconds, you still see the loading wheel on a lot of platforms.

Pluto TV has developed its own server-side ad delivery solution allowing it to have no loading between content and ad breaks (ads are stitched into the stream). Also notable is its current ban on pre-rolls. “Being free is a massive plus but starting the experience with ads without having watched any content yet is way less appealing,” Jollet says.

Shoppable ads are currently booming in social media and with Walmart’s Vudu just one of a few services looking into ‘shoppable content’ allowing viewers to click and buy.

Brightcove for one supports clickable ad creatives for server-side ad insertion (SSAI), where interactivity historically hasn’t been available. “We’ve seen a great response from customers experimenting with in-content purchasing,” reports Knauer.

Advertisers may also be able to show different creatives to the same viewer over time. One example could be for a car advertiser. The first time you show the outside of the car, the second time you show the inside of the car, the third time you show the dashboard, the fourth time you show the price and the fifth you provide a call to action.

Other attributes of a successful AVOD

To ensure reach, availability of the service on all current OTT devices, as well as being present in app stores for streaming on mobile devices, is essential.

Nevertheless, video content is still mostly streamed on Connected TVs, while users relax on the couch in their living room. A March 2019 survey by Attest [https://www.emarketer.com/content/most-video-streaming-happens-on-tv-sets] confirms this. Non-skippable full-screen ads prove particularly profitable.

“Viewing is fragmenting but here’s what’s staying the same: the highest value inventory is on the living room TV,” says Gordon. “It’s a different level of engagement which translates to a different level of inventory value. The significance of the living room TV as the main AVOD platform is that it increases ad value.”

Corrado focuses on the need for services to prioritise quality of experience. “The AVOD business requires large amounts of users viewing content for free so capacity is a necessity to facilitate the stream request volume,” he says. “If viewers experience buffering or ads not starting quickly enough, it has been proven that they will leave the stream and eventually churn will increase on the platform. Infrastructure is the number one thing that needs to be focused on when looking to implement an AVOD offering as you need to ensure the quality of experience remains high.”

Video playback performance can be impacted by ads as well. In a live stream, the ad server needs to handle requests for each viewer in a relatively short amount of time.

“The best way to improve performance is to maximize direct-sold ads, allowing them to be filled directly from inventory,” says Knauer. “For programmatic ads, employing header bidding can ensure timely ad requests.”

Netflix and water coolers

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings may have ruled out running ads on Netflix any time soon but there won’t be one SVOD to rule them all. Instead, the SVOD market will fragment while less-impressive SVOD libraries (due to popular content being spread among different services) and subscription fatigue contribute to the point where AVOD and SVOD coexist, satisfying different consumer needs.

Once smaller, specialized AVOD services begin to capture a decent chunk of market share, Brightcove expects to see more content acquisitions and a return of the ‘skinny bundle’ as we’re starting to see with Disney+ packaging and bundling.

“Households will potentially settle on two or three SVODs and will look into AVODs as free add-ons more and more frequently,” Jollet predicts. “We don’t feel pressured by whatever decision Netflix might make in terms of ad-supported models and I don’t think other AVOD services do either. We are choosing to embrace an ad-funded model, choosing to explore niches, choosing to go with channels instead of on demand and that has paid off.”

Indeed, analyst WARC’s Global Ad Spend report estimates that ad spend on AVOD is set to double by 2023, reaching $47bn worldwide.

Even as dollars shift inexorably online, there may always be a space for traditional linear advertising to reach the mass market around marquee events.

A stark reminder of this occurred during Super Bowl LIV when Fox quickly sold out inventory for its TV broadcast with prices up to U$5.6 million for 30 secs. Buyers included Disney, pitching the arrival of a Marvel series on Disney+. Netflix paid for similar exposure in the three previous Super Bowl telecasts.

Cloud native, On-prem or Hybrid – you decide

content marketing for Blackbird

Even before current global circumstances hit home, IP networking and content delivery was the top-ranked trend in broadcast worldwide.

https://www.blackbird.video/uncategorized/cloud-native-on-prem-or-hybrid-you-decide/

The latest BBS Media Technology Global Trend Index from market intelligence firm Devoncroft concluded that IP has now moved off the drawing board, out of standards bodies, and beyond one-off marquee projects to become more widely understood and adopted.

Many users view the transition to IP-based infrastructure as the most fundamental change in the industry. Shifting from the fixed costs of private infrastructure to the pay-as-you-go flexibility of the cloud archiving, production and delivery model is just one of the benefits.

Cloud capabilities enable media organisations to customise or spin up an entirely new workflow at any time. Solutions offer scalability and allows computing capacity to expand to support growth or the agility to quickly respond to changing markets and customer needs.

That’s never been more acute. For business continuity, companies want to employ geo-diverse networked operations for multi-user collaboration and to leverage virtualized services for storage, processing, and accounting. The early use case of cloud adoption, that of disaster recovery, has suddenly come to the fore.

The reality for many is that this transition cannot happen overnight. As Devoncroft observes, the transition to IP isn’t just a refresh of part of the technology architecture, it will for many, be a phased task taking in infrastructure, systems, interoperability, processes, and users.

Fortunately, there is no need for broadcasters to immediately migrate all processes and workflows to the cloud, completely decommissioning valuable hardware or interrupting their primary revenue-generating operations.  The pragmatic approach for many is to shift workflows to the cloud over time.

What these enterprise customers want is an open, secure platform that will work from day one with the creative tools they use day in and day out. They want the flexibility to configure their media infrastructure either on-premise, or in the cloud or in a hybrid environment.

Blackbird is unique in this regard. The platform allows you to manage your video like no other solution – enabling lightning-fast video viewing, clipping, editing and publishing – by anyone, anytime, anywhere.

Anywhere means anywhere. Blackbird references your media from its current location – on-premise or in the cloud. The technology can access high volume files via the cloud or Network Attached Storage – or both. In either instance, this dramatically reduces the bandwidth cost for uploading and downloading large files while allowing enterprises to transition from on-premise to full cloud as smoothly as individual business needs dictate.

Intel is building a brain the size of a planet

RedShark News

Intel has developed a first-of-its-kind self-learning neuromorphic chip which could scale to a supercomputer thousands of times more powerful than any today.
https://www.redsharknews.com/technology/item/7092-intel-is-building-a-brain-the-size-of-a-planet

An experimental research system that simulates the way human brains work could replace the GPU for the most compute intensive tasks like Artificial Intelligence within five years.

According to analyst Gartner, as reported in the The Wall Street Journal neuromorphic chips are expected to be the predominant computing architecture for new, advanced forms of artificial-intelligence deployments by 2025.

By that year, Gartner predicts, the technology is expected to displace graphics processing units, one of the main computer chips used for AI systems, especially neural networks. Neural networks are used in speech recognition and understanding, as well as computer vision.

This news is prompted by Intel’s debut of Pohoiki Springs, a neuromorphic computing system comprised of about 770 neuromorphic chips inside a chassis the size of five standard servers.

Loihi

The chip – codenamed Loihi – mimics how the brain functions by learning to operate based on various modes of feedback from the environment. This extremely energy-efficient chip, which uses the data to learn and make inferences, gets smarter over time and does not need to be trained in the traditional way.

Loihi processors take inspiration from the human brain. Like the brain, Loihi can process certain demanding workloads up to 1000 times faster and 10,000 times more efficiently than conventional processors. Pohoiki Springs is the next step in scaling this architecture to solve not just artificial intelligence problems, but a wide range of computationally difficult problems.

It is being be made available, via the cloud, to the Intel Neuromorphic Research Community. This includes about a dozen companies (such as Accenture and Airbus), academic researchers and government labs.

Neuromorphic computing will make it possible to train machine-learning models using a fraction of the data it takes to train them on traditional computing hardware.

Intel’s Neuromorphic Computing Lab director Mike Davies explained that the models “learn similarly to the way human babies learn, by seeing an image or toy once and being able to recognise it forever.”

The models can also learn from the data, nearly instantaneously, ultimately making predictions that could be more accurate than those made by traditional machine-learning models. 

Less energy use

Another major benefit of neuromorphic computing is the potential for it to perform calculations using much less energy. Developing a single AI model, for example, can generate a carbon footprint equivalent to the lifetime emissions of five average cars, according to researchers at the University of Massachusetts.

“It’s going to make some computations possible that are intractable today because they require a lot of energy or too much time to calculate,” Davies said. “Unlike in traditional machines, in the Pohoiki Springs system, the memory and computing elements are intertwined rather than separate … [which] minimizes the distance that data has to travel.”

Neuromorphic chips could eventually be embedded in cameras.

Accenture Labs has been working with Intel’s researchers since 2018 to see how the technology could benefit AI algorithms that are used in internet-connected devices, such as security cameras that are constantly detecting motion.

Insect to mole to human and beyond

To give us an idea of its power, Intel compares its computer brain to that of beings in the natural world.

Some of the smallest living organisms can solve remarkably hard computational problems – packing a lot of problem-solving power into tiny membranes and consuming remarkably little energy.

Many insects, for example, can visually track objects and navigate and avoid obstacles in real time, despite having brains with well under 1 million neurons.

Today, Pohoiki Springs has the computational capacity of 100 million neurons. That compares favourably to the size of a small mammal brain, according to Intel, which describes this as a major step on the path to supporting much larger and more sophisticated neuromorphic workloads.

The system lays the foundation for an autonomous, connected future, which will require new approaches to real-time, dynamic data processing, Intel says.

Intel has already tested a single neuromorphic research chip to train an AI system to recognise hazardous smells using one training sample per odor, compared to the 3000 samples required in state-of-the-art deep-learning methods.

Intel neuromorphic computing lab senior research scientist Nabil Imam believes that neuromorphic systems will be able to “diagnose diseases, detect weapons and explosives, find narcotics, and spot signs of smoke and carbon monoxide.”

Scientists at IBM, HP and researchers at MIT and Stanford are also investigating the technology which, according to Imam, could be used “to develop a supercomputer a thousand times more powerful than any today.”

Making the military grade

AV Magazine

The words ‘mission critical’ are often overused but, in this case, they are precisely accurate when describing the importance of AV technology in defence. The analysis of data – increasingly, video-based information from a wide range of sensors and sources – that is distributed and displayed via AV systems in a command and control operations centre or on the battlefield is fundamental to making informed military decisions.

https://www.avinteractive.com/features/market-features/making-military-grade-30-03-2020/

As Robert A. Ventresca, vice-president of marketing, Thinklogical puts it, being ‘military grade’ is not just a marketing slogan, “it’s a very specific set of requirements that need to be met to sell and successfully deliver to this sector.”

After a decade of relative stagnant (but still exorbitant) military funding by nations, spend is on the up. It’s led out of the US where $649 billion was spent in 2018, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a rise of 4.6 per cent on 2017. The second-largest spender was China, which increased its military budget by five per cent, to $250 billion.

Defence spending
Analysis from Jane’s Defence Budgets indicates that European defence spending is set to hit $300 billion by 2021, having languished between $25 and $275 billion since 2005. Several countries including Germany (up 11 per cent) and Sweden (nine per cent) are significantly upping their budgets. The UK spent over $51.6 billion in 2018, up from $49.2 billion in 2017, according to Statista.

AV solutions have never been in more demand. AV is needed for communication and collaboration: remote working, meeting rooms, operation centres, conference rooms, classrooms to transfer information.

“The military market is starting to understand that a professional AV solution is a means to get the latest technology more affordably than investing billions on a bespoke solution which can take considerable time before it’s ready,” says Mark Rushton, business development director, VITEC. “They’re eager to use customisable, off-the-shelf solutions.”

Due to the dramatic increase in video-rich data, AV products that efficiently transport and distribute high-res video, audio, and related signal types such as KVM are in demand. Thinklogical points to products such as high-performance matrix switches and modular KVM extenders as enabling reliable and accurate distribution of computer I/O signal formats.

“As government agencies migrate to 4K resolutions, this adds additional bandwidth demands on the AV infrastructure, and many organisations are installing fibre optics to handle these requirements,” says Ventresca. “Fibre has the additional benefit of not emanating electrical signals – an important consideration when dealing with confidential or classified data in the defence and intelligence sector.”

As the difference between AV and IT diminishes there’s rising demand for solutions that are on the network.

“Solutions have to be IT friendly and quickly deployed,” says Jeremy Button, director of Federal sales at Crestron. “Three years ago custom programming was necessary and technology ran on sub-nets. That’s changing now as departments want to utilise the network they already own.”

Cloud solutions are also on the rise, evidenced by the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI), a $10 billion contract the US Department of Defense awarded to Microsoft Azure.

“Advances in technology, such as smaller, higher-speed cameras with higher frame rates, means high-quality content moves with more frequency over well-secured lines,” says Bryan Carpenter, senior sales consultant, Bittree (which makes AV and data patching products). “People can edit onboard aircraft carriers. These advances lead to a demand for smaller, faster and better quality products.”

Bittree recently supplied a 12G single-link video patching system to NASA to manage and process imagery coming back from the Mars Lander. The video transmits from space over an RF signal, is captured in Alabama at the NASA Broadcast Center where content is edited and pushed through the broadcast infrastructure, where Bittree’s patchbays manage and distribute the content.

“Redundancy is important in government and defence AV-related projects for data and storage protection,” says Carpenter. “Archiving is a necessity. We did a big job with the Library of Congress in DC that includes a wealth of Bittree patching. Our products cleanly digitise and reliably archive all their legacy and new content, from copyright papers to books and movies.”

Stringent data security
There’s one key requirement for AV solutions used in military/defence/ government versus those in other verticals – the security of the product.

“There are many routine use cases in government where unclassified information is distributed through AV systems in locations such as conference rooms and most commercial AV products can support these general requirements,” Ventresca says. “But in defence applications where classified information is involved, commercial AV systems fall far short of meeting demanding security requirements to ensure data integrity and separation of the various classified data streams.”

This limits the number of providers. “Manufacturers are required to invest a lot of resources in certifications, and not all companies are able or willing to do that,” says Button. “No matter how robust your solution, if it has been made in China, it will not be considered by the government.”

Physical standards such as the US defence standard MIL-STD and STANdardization AGreements (STANAG) implemented by NATO, are used to achieve objectives such as continued operation when exposed to electromagnetic interference.

The Motion Imagery Standards Board (MISB), focuses on ensuring the interoperability, integrity and quality of Motion Imagery, associated metadata and audio. Further security guidelines aim to ‘lock down’ information systems that might otherwise be vulnerable to cyberattack.

“Governments create specialised information assurance (IA) policies for managing classified data through AV systems,” says Ventresca. “These policies require the use of AV products that have been tested to ensure compliance with strict IA security standards, adding another layer of complexity to the AV infrastructure typically not seen in the commercial marketplace.”

With every product they come across, organisations in this vertical will push through their own security invasion investigation techniques, asking: Is it vulnerable to attack? How is it deployed? Is it ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations)-relevant? Will it enable encryption? Will it support people in the field and those who work on legacy platforms?

“This includes software upgrades,” says Rushton. “Where other verticals are typically eager to upgrade to the latest and greatest version, defence requires solutions that continue to be supported as the product evolves. They have to be robust and environmentally reliable. The military needs to be operational 24/7, which is very much like the broadcast market, but engineered to withstand far harsher environments. Video appliances have to be reliable no matter the condition – dust, wind, water, or vibration.”

Complex procurement
The defence procurement process can suffer from the bloat of external analysts and limited opportunities for demonstrations. Military programmes are normally bid on and secured by very large specialist military integrators and many of these either directly deliver the AV and projection aspects of the requirements or they outsource working with specialist partners.

“The business opportunities can be large but can also be very sporadic based on waiting for the next major programmes to be released,” says John Mould, commercial development manager at Antycip Simulation. “The solutions sought for these requirements tend to be higher end with a necessity for multiple years of future support.”

From the commencement of bidding to when the award is granted the process is often long and drawn-out.

“Government and defence create very detailed specifications which must be quoted before budgets are approved and released,” says Carpenter. “Certain projects that are written aren’t always released due to political and/or economic situations and this leads to lengthy delays – up to several years. It’s always been that way, and isn’t likely to change.”

Terminology around this process in the US is called the Systems Award Management (SAM). European departments operate a similar system. “If a bid is over a certain amount, the branches are forced to get three bids,” says Carpenter. “If it’s under, they can cut it out of their budgets. Greenfield sites and total rebuilds are often the most expensive and longest to close.

“The vendor also has to be qualified for government work. An enormous amount of paperwork and an approval process is involved, which makes it easier for them to specify a vendor’s equipment. Once you are in their system, it’s easier to win repeat projects.”

Button says that governments are only allowed to work with contract dealers who in turn reach out to resellers or dealers. “It’s less efficient, but it’s the way the procurement process works here. It’s a means to put out a large project with millions of dollars that can be bonded and secured.”

Tech trends
Historically, the reconnaissance and defence market got its start with the ability to photograph, which moved into video when it became an option. Today, these environments demand realtime, high-quality live video to make life-changing decisions instantly.

“In the future, they’ll also require high-def imagery,” says Rushton. “Currently they’re looking at multiple streams of the same imagery. Their content stream may include an infrared stream of the same picture in colour, alongside another form of sensor signal. As far as we’re concerned, a signal coming from a sensor is a video regardless of whether it’s infrared, spectral analysis, or electronic optics.”

Simulation game
The industry must continue to evolve and modernise, but the means to do so are far from unlimited. One key investment is in people, and the defence industry must find affordable but effective means to train staff. Immersive display technologies are essential.

“Demand isn’t slowing but it is becoming less predictable,” says Mould. “We often experience delays for large procurements to be finalised.”

Military AV programs tend to require longevity from the products supplied. That increasingly counts against digital projectors with traditional lamp based light sources.

“Solid-state LED and laser-based projection hardware are in demand but there are still requirements for lamp-based projectors mainly for programmes that cannot afford the upfront investment needed for solid-state alternatives,” says Mould.

“Automatic calibration of multi-channel projection arrays is now a mainstream requirement whereas, in the past, hands-on digital correction would have been acceptable. Higher resolution and higher frame rates continue to improve the fidelity and experience of virtual environments.”

120fps was seen as the higher end capability for flight simulators, but last year the first commercially available projection hardware delivering 240fps was demonstrated at I/ITSEC, one of the largest military events of its kind.

Another change noted by Antycip is that a recent ‘high profile US military program’ selected bezel-less videowall technology over traditional projection-based hardware to address the visuals required for a Joint Fires Trainer. This may set a precedent for programmes with similar needs in future.

Advances in direct LED and curved display configurations will offer a more immersive field of vision. “The price/performance is not there yet but we believe it’s only a matter of time,” says Mould. “Increased innovation will shift the types of display hardware normally secured for vehicle and JTAC (Joint Terminal Attack Controllers) simulators.”

Scaling up: The new opportunities for LED

Inavate

With high resolution LED now available at lower cost and at lighter weights and in flexible configurations, it can be used on a big scale and in more creative ways to deliver digital spectaculars.

How do you make content stand out in a world of screens? Digital screens used to be flat, framed and square but new flexible LED technologies are freeing designers to get creative with format and to showcase more artistic content. “With flexible and freeform LED the creative possibilities are virtually limitless,” says Michel Buchner from creative technology provider, Nexxt Technology.

https://www.inavateonthenet.net/features/article/scaling-up-the-opportunities-of-modern-led

“The only problem is that the majority of designers and architects are not aware of this yet. Once they think beyond the frame and more about animated wallpaper, patterns, and textures blended as elements in their designs we expect a large rise in the use of aesthetic media with projection mapping and flexible LED.” Only five years ago, LED technology was best known for large format outdoor installations but in recent years, the miniaturisation of LED components has made it possible to obtain increasingly fine pitch at affordable prices such that it is now replacing LCD inboard rooms.

“We recognised the value of flexible LED a while ago especially because of the work we do in retail,” says Adam Wilson, director of digital media solutions provider Intevi. “We did our first proper digital art in 2014 in Covent Garden for Galleria Mellisa. It was a statement piece more about digital art than a display but they didn’t want just a big TV. The only way to achieve it was with fine pitch LED.

“That said, it’s always been a challenge to get customers to think about screens beyond a 16x9 frame and ultimately to think beyond a TV shape and be a bit more images going around corners.”

The first examples of flexible printed circuit boards (PCBs) shown in a ribbon configuration were presented at ISE some years ago.

Arguably, the real shift was the custom fabrication of PCB shapes which permit the design of any cut shape. From circles to complete logos and even domes- all made to spec. Some companies are putting a lot of R&D into refining custom PCB design products. It’s the smaller manufacturers who tend to offer this service rather than the larger manufacturers who are more focused on volume, identifies Buchner.

LED ‘sheets’ exhibited at ISE2020 from Spanish company Flying Screens can be combined to create custom-size screens for installation in unconventional locations such as on curved surfaces. The company claims the technology allows design and features which are currently impossible to reach with traditional LED panels. China’s LianTronics showed an ultra-thin and lightweight LED display for OOH offering 8,000 nits, and 14-bit greyscale.

Its new RM series is for the rental market and weighs 25kg per sq m to be spliced into shapes such as concave, L-shape, curved and dislocation.

Projection versus LED

LED and projection have their own uses, pros and cons. An immersive experience with no daylight where people are close to the image would not make sense with curved LED. An airport with an advertisement column with ambient daylight could work with flexible LED but certainly not with projection.

“Projection still has its place, such as for a transparent image display where projection has no rival,” says Wilson. “Equally, there are certain scenarios where you can’t use projection without problems such as in window displays or areas of high ambient light.”

Jones offers that projection may beat LED if you’re trying to map content onto complex shapes like cars or shoes, but there’s no beating LED when it comes to using video as an architectural feature. “If you want to put a ring on top of a skyscraper, build around about on the outside of an arena or wrap a stage in video then LED is your product of choice.”

Flexible LED can easily be manipulated into simple curved shapes, but they aren’t flexible enough (yet) to accommodate the compound curves of three-dimensional shapes. As Peter Jones, Anna Valley MD puts it, “We can easily build a cylinder but not a pear shape. ”The main issues limiting LED’s flexibility are long lead times and batch mixing at a distribution level, which can impact colour consistency of the final installation,” according to Tom Fenton, senior business development manager, Peerless-AV.

“There’s also no standard LED sizing because every manufacturer has their own cabinet size and dedicated mounting pattern. Typically, this means the mounting structure required to support the LED is almost always custom.” But if you design around the limits of the products then almost anything is possible.“

Organic curves can be created by combining irregularly shaped LED modules and including some faceted curves to achieve the desired effect,” says Jones. “In any industry there are those that challenge the norm and push the boundaries of what is possible, we’re fortunate that the designers who think in organic and creative ways tend to come to us.”

According to Buchner, most installers will just do what their clients, architects and designers ask of them within their product portfolio. “The bulk of their work is to deliver a standard aspect ratio solution where the creative process in design language and content design is not an intrinsic motivation and has most of the time already happened,” he says.

“In general, installers tend to stick to the proven portfolio with straight lines and flat surfaces.”Outside of the corporate market, designers, installers and architects are being far more artistic and imaginative in their LED designs.

“Architects have a very creative spirit,” says Julien Perie, project manager at French LED provider Pekason. “They generally have no difficulty in designing original screens."

Nonetheless a central question is how to make designers aware of all the creative possibilities and remove the fear of working with visual technology. “The physical design and content production processes need to be completely in sync for complex LED installations,” says Jones. “Pre-visualisation is important for content designers so we produce a detailed pixel map of the physical design and then translate that into a digital 3D model so they can see exactly how their content will land on the screen.”

With so many possibilities, from fixed to wall and pop-out, ceiling suspended, recessed, moveable on track system, and even concave and convex, content needs to be adapted according to the structural design.

“A key consideration is where the content is being viewed from and does it need to be in a specific aspect ratio as this will impact which pixel pitch should be used,” advises Fenton. Wilson finds some videowall screen suppliers haven’t taken the time investment to learn this technology. “We spend time and money to research the tech and train our pre-install and design teams, our technicians, whether for standard LED or curved.

“The minute we talk about screens not being standard shaped or oriented then content creation becomes a challenge, even though the procedure is largely the same as before. There has to be more consideration about the media playback and a lot more thought about content than ever before. You can spend a million quid on the most amazing LED screen but it’s worthless if you don’t invest in the content.

“The product is more reliable than it has been, fine pitches are decreasing all the time. But people still feel as if it’s a black art – that it’s still quite complicated – which it is not.”

Budgets will be restrictive, since it is still a higher-priced niche product. A flexible LED tile, for example, needs a metal supporting back structure to bring it into shape and attach the tiles magnetically. This adds cost and custom engineering.

Cylinders and one-directional ribbons are fairly straight forward but the challenge begins when doing more intricate designs.

“For unique cut out shapes, you will need custom-designed PCB’s from the manufacturer,” Buchner advises.

“An ellipse shape has standard square tiles in the middle, so that is standard fabrication. All the curved edges on the ellipse will need to be custom designed.

Design

The biggest challenge is to approach design with a spatial mindset. Buchner explains: “In the early days with events, we had talented screen designers that made the most beautiful things for TV screens within a frame. It took time, discussions and numerous visits to the venues to explain the impact and workings of their images in a large layered space like an arena show.

In any industry there are those that challenge the norm and push the boundaries of what is possible, we’re fortunate that the designers who think in organic and creative ways tend to come to us - Peter Jones, Anna Valley

“The same challenge will apply for those designing in the public space. The upside is that today we have better visualisation tools, like VR and 3D CAD, to validate designs and create a digital spatial experience upfront.

There’s also a large 3D mapping design crowd that has the experience to think spatially and knows the tricks to bring a space to life.” The most important factor is analysing the space and purpose you are designing for and thinking in content from the start - without the boundaries of hardware. Questions like ‘Is it a commercial or primarily artistic design?’ and ‘What should your spectator experience?’ are paramount.

Do you want active attention or does it complement the space in an artistic way like a wallpaper or light sculpture?

“Every space or building has its own approach with visual media, but with numerous solutions and financial ramifications,” Buchner says. “It’s is absolutely vital to drop the convention of the regular screen as most people look at it today.

”Nexxt has an in house trial with a young classical educated architect, “with zest and knowledge of motion video design,” to see how he approaches the design challenges.

Despite this, Buchner’s hunch is that it will take many years before ‘thinking outside the frame’ becomes a widely accepted design methodology.

'Touchable' holograms are now an actual thing

RedShark 

If there’s one piece of tech that could enhance all our lives right now it is the ability to touch someone while being miles even continents apart. Imagine reaching out and high-fiving someone during a virtual Quiz night among friends on Houseparty? Or giving your parents a hug on Skype while in enforced quarantine?

https://www.redsharknews.com/technology/item/7080-touchable-holograms-are-now-an-actual-thing

Other applications of the technology include use helping treat illness, by allowing surgeons to virtually touch and feel the affected areas of a patient - for example a tumour - before operating. That would come in super-useful now to protect medical staff, if the tech was actually workable.

Tactile feedback is deemed essential for any future holographic entertainment or communications systems and a field that has been explored for many years.

So, is it time to being this to the fore?

Researchers in Japan have led the way. Five years ago, haptics researchers at the University of Tokyo's Department of Complexity Science and Engineering (DCSE). They invented the ‘Haptoclone’ claimed as the first touchable hologram.

The Haptoclone consists of two boxes, one containing an object and the other displaying a hologram of it. When a human hand comes into ‘contact’ with the 3D image in the second box, the hologram emits ultrasonic radiation pressure, giving the user the illusion of actually touching it. Meanwhile, special aerial imaging panels act like a kind of mirror, making a hologram of the hand appear visually in the other box, too, so it can ‘interact’ with the original object.

Midair Haptics

Since then, the Tokyo team has investigated how airborne ultrasound can produce pressure and temperature distribution on a skin. They are calling such non-contact stimulation ‘Midair Haptics.’

Its prototype Airborne Ultrasound tactile Display does not require users to wear any devices. Ultrasound transducers arrayed on the display surface generate a ultrasound focus at an arbitrary position in the air. At the focal point with high energy density, static pressure is produced which can push the skin surface. Research began in 2008 and continues today with many universities and companies in the world moving forward with development, says the University of Tokyo.

Using the same technology, the University has also developed a way of controlling real objects without touch. They created a game of table tennis in which participants could alter the trajectory of the ping-pong ball using a computationally controlled force.

As a basic technology of controlling a moving object, Hopping-Pong can be applied for removing defective samples in food production lines and modifying the trajectory of an object thrown by a human, the researchers says.

Ultrahaptics

The DSCE is by no means the only place investigating touchable holograms. As early as 2014, computer scientists at Bristol University called their discovery UltraHaptics, and involves a device that can pick up ultrasound waves present in the air, condensing them to create a pressure difference that gives the illusion of a touchable 3D object floating in thin air.

French R&D firm Immersion, experimented with combining Ultrahaptics with Microsoft HoloLens in 2016. Press coverage at the time questioned whether we touching a loved one's hand from the other side of the world would seem awesome or would creep you out? What we might give to try this now.

Work is continuing as evidenced at CES in January this year. VR Electronics, based in the UK with subsidiaries in the USA and R&D in Belarus, launched a VR glove that integrates haptics, motion capture, biometry (emotional state, stress level, and heart rate detection), and force feedback through sensors on each finger to make the user feel that the experience was real.

Branded TelslaSuit, the glove detects the movements of wearer’s hands and uses this information to boost movement accuracy, give precise feedback, and even fine-tune the user’s motor skills. VR Electronics believe this will be used in robotic tele-control systems to medical rehabilitation and enterprise training. It was due for launch in the second half of 2020 costing U$5000.

Another haptic glove was shown by Seattle-based HaptX Its glove feature 130 tactile actuators or ‘haptic pixels’) that provide feedback by pushing against the user’s skin, displacing it the same way a real object would when touched and motion tracking with claimed sub-millimeter precision. An SDK supports Unity and Unreal Engine 4 for creating content experiences for HaptX Gloves.

In addition, a lightweight force-feedback exoskeleton is able to apply up to four pounds.

Also, at CES2020, South Korea’s TEGway showed ThermoReal, a temperature feedback haptic device claimed to create realistic sensations of hot and cold in VR. At the core of its tech is a thermoelectric generator based on the Seebeck effect which creates a temperature differential based on electric current. The product was chosen as a CES 2020 Innovation Award Honoree and there were plans to launch a development kit this spring. 

Playing to a captive audience

IBC

Are virtual sports a poor substitute or the real thing? Current circumstances suggest we’re about to find out.

https://www.ibc.org/consume/playing-to-a-captive-audience/5619.article

Public eSports events have had the tap turned off like every other league but online tournaments are one of the few sports to continue live broadcast unabated.

Already a billion-dollar-a-year industry, the esports sector is able to command a significant audience – making it a viable alternative to traditional sport, claimed analysts GlobalData.

Its Sportcal Intelligence Centre records Intel spending over U$10 million annually to sponsor the Overwatch League and Nike spending U$8 million a year to supply kit to teams competing in the League of Legends Pro League.

“This may insulate these brands from the turmoil currently facing the wider sports market through their partnerships with a widely digital medium,” said Conrad Wiacek, head of analysis and consulting at Sportcal, a GlobalData company.

“The esports sector also has a great opportunity in the media rights space. With the sporting calendar decimated, broadcasters will be looking for content to fill their schedules. While a boom in media rights for eSports was expected, the coronavirus outbreak may see the value of these rights jump significantly.”

Another analyst, Newzoo, expected the sector to generate $1.1 billion this up 15.7% from U$950.6 million in 2019 with an audience projected to grow to 495 million people in 2020. Those figures were released before markets like the US, France and UK went into almost total shut down and so can be expected to rise.

That’s in part because professional sports athletes and fans are turning to online gaming to relieve their withdrawal symptoms. Mass participation would be an on-ramp to esports as well as to mobile gaming apps and live streaming platforms like Google Stadia.

Sports go virtualEFL side Leyton Orient has gone global with its announcement that it would host a mass Fifa 20 tournament for professional football clubs.

The proposal was made on Twitter last Sunday [15 March] using the hashtag #UltimateQuaranTeam, and has seen such an astonishing response that the club has had to expand the concept to a 128-club competition. It currently features teams from 16 countries including Manchester City, Ajax, Roma and Sydney FC.

When Benfica withdrew yesterday, Swindon Town’s Cameron McGilp stepped in and will represent the Robins in the first round of the tournament against FC Nantes. The centre-back, who is currently on loan to National League side Hungerford Town, is no esports ingénue having beaten last year’s world champion Mo Aubameyang in this season’s Weekend League on Fifa 20.

Numerous soccer clubs have invested in esports teams as a means to boost digital and social growth and are putting forward esports team members to compete in Fifa Quaran.

Motorsports, another natural partner for simulation games, has also been swift to shift gear.

Rather than run behind closed doors, NASCAR is launching an invitational Esports series to fill the void. The series begins this weekend at the virtual Homestead-Miami circuit with participation of reigning NASCAR Cup Series champ Kyle Busch and 2020 Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin.

Dutch Formula One star Max Verstappen and IndyCar champion Simon Pagenaud duked it out playing rFactor 2 in an event organised by online motorsport publication, The Race.

The All-Star Esports Battle was streamed on YouTube to half a million viewers and apparently topped the chart on Twitch.

Not only does that underline an appetite for such virtual events but perhaps a pent-up demand to see intriguing match-ups that only the level playing field of the internet can throw up.

In this case, the stars of different motorsport disciplines lined up on the same grid. Meanwhile, the NASCAR event promises to pair forty-five-year-old retired legend Dale Earnhardt Jr, against current 27-year old star Kyle Larson.

What would you pay to watch Diego Maradona and Gary Lineker replay the 1986 World Cup quarter final, perhaps with a sprinkling of today’s stars like Lionel Messi and Trent Alexander Arnold on the pitch?

Futuresource Consulting expects a boost in viewing of game streaming sites Amazon Twitch, YouTube Gaming and Microsoft Mixer. Twitch viewership has seen a 12% year-on-year increase compared with March 2019, the analyst records, with rapid growth in viewers in the last few weeks. Crucially however, there has also been an increase in the number of paying subscribers (who pay $5 per month for additional channel and social features), of which Amazon takes a significant cut. There has also been an increase in the number of channels and content creators, with the young audience stuck at home due to school closures using the platform to interact with the outside world.

Blurred linesThe lines between esports and ‘actual’ sports have been blurring for some time as leagues and federations attempt to draw younger generations to their product with gamification.

Some have been more progressive than others. Electric motorsport series Formula-E launched the world’s first live racing game which enabled gamers to race in real time with real drivers, on the real tracks of the 2019 ABB FIA Formula E Championship.

The same technology could be applied to “speed bikes, yacht racing or camel racing,” according to Virtually Live CEO Markus Tellenbach.Technology from Swiss developer Virtually Live combines photoreal simulations of each race track with realtime GPS-driven telemetry from cars racing up to 100mph. The output is used to enable the ghost racing of fans online with drivers on the track and is used by Formula-E’s broadcast production partner Aurora Media to stream live CGI analysis.

It is increasingly possible that the worlds of esports and actual physical sport will merge. Brendon Leigh, a 20-year-old from Oxfordshire, is the reigning Formula One Esports Series World Champion who made the jump to the track last April when he completed a trio of Formula Ford races at England’s Snetterton circuit.

Start-up motorsport series G1, run by Israeli car manufacturer Griiip, ran virtual races last year in which drivers competed head to head in VR simulator games for championship points.

It also ran a separate virtual series open to the public with a longer-term plan to offer the winner a seat in an actual G1 race team.

“There’s a whole world of gamers playing race simulators but until now it’s been quite disconnected from real racing,” said Gilad Agam, CTO, Griiip.  “The stars of virtual have never driven a real car and vice versa. We’re taking this community of really good simulator racing drivers and trying to create a community in which real and virtual drivers are the same.”

21-year-old Slovenian Kevin Siggy Rebernak won the 2019 Griiip virtual series winning 11 out of 12 races and landing a test in a real Griiip G1 car at Varano as his prize.

Rebernak, who has been sim racing since the age of 13 also beat hundreds of thousands of entrants to be crowned winner of the 2019 McLaren Shadow Project Grand Final winning a seat on the McLaren Shadow esports team for 2020.

Zak Brown, CEO, McLaren Racing, said, “The transference of skills between real and virtual racing is key to the McLaren Shadow Project and at McLaren we believe that esports is fertile ground in which to nurture and grow racing talent.”

In another potentially groundbreaking first for the future of virtual sports, the competition also included Jan Saathoff, 33, from Germany who is a wheelchair user. He qualified by playing Real Racing 3 on mobile and competed head-to-head with the other five participants using an adapted gaming rig without pedals. He relied wholly on game controllers and steering wheels and successfully competed at the highest level.

Pro AmWelsh cyclist Geraint Thomas who currently rides for UCI WorldTeam Team Ineos has taken to racing amateurs on virtual platforms such as Zwift. Other pro cyclists are also on the platform including Adam Yates and Andre Greipel and Zwift plans to add to its events such as the Tour of Watopia with new events in light of demand.

It doesn’t take too much imagination to realise the commercial possibilities of lining up Rory McIlroy to play EA’s PGA Tour game against all comers.

Meanwhile, should the IOC be placing all of its eggs in the Intel World Open esports tournament which is still due to take place with live audience attended finals in Japan just ahead of the Tokyo Games? Games include Street Fighter V and have already kicked off with online qualifiers where any player at any level can compete for a chance to join their national team.

With esports as an industry pitching to be an official Olympic sport come Paris 2024, there’s an argument that its inauguration be accelerated as keyboard and joystick participation is the only exercise many of us will get for some time to come.