Editors Have Proof of Concept for Flexible Work Environments. Now What?

AVID

The media and entertainment industry has the green light to restart production—but while there are still health risks, many remote video editing workflows will stay in place. The question is for how long, and which aspects of these flexible work environments will go on to become the industry’s new normal after lockdown ends.

http://www.avidblogs.com/editors-have-proof-of-concept-for-flexible-work-environments-now-what/

Post-production and VFX companies were not required to close during quarantine. In fact, many in North America and Europe have continued to service existing orders through a combination of remote workflows and social distancing measures for finishing procedures, such as Dolby Atmos mixes that need to be performed on site.

Meanwhile, trade bodies like the UK Screen Alliance and the Motion Picture Editors Guild are providing guidelines for working safely, aiming to get the post sector back to the office to limit the expected fallout of widespread redundancies.

Todd Downing, ACE (Mrs. America), is looking forward to returning but feels understandably hesitant about what the new rules mean in practice. “I don’t think we are ready to be in enclosed spaces with others right now,” he says. “But I am optimistic that with all the scientists studying the virus we can figure out how to make that a reality soon.”

Even after it’s safe to return, though, the industry will still have confirmed that it can support remote production. “For a lot of people in the industry, this was not an obvious assumption,” says Michele Sciolette, CTO at Cinesite, in an interview for Creative Planet Network. “Today we know, with direct first-hand experience, that remote production is possible while maintaining a high level of productivity.” Cinesite supports studios in Vancouver, Montreal, London, and Germany.

This changing mindset seems to run along the chain from studio executives to finishing boutique. As the industry recalibrates, it’s opening up to the idea of shifting away from the former centralized model, where the production office and facility were the operating hubs for creative personnel, toward more flexible work environments.

“A hybrid model—where some aspects of production continue to be office-based while others are done remotely—would have a lot of advantages,” Sciolette said, in an interview continued on Cinesite’s site. “This would allow us to address the limitations we face with the current ‘all-remote’ setups while giving us the flexibility to scale up our teams beyond the constraints of our physical office space, as well as providing more flexibility to our team members and reducing our carbon footprint.”

In truth, the industry had already begun implementing hybrid architectures where media is held on-prem and/or in external data centers, and is accessible from a facility or remotely via cloud using PCoIP remote display tools. COVID-19 has fast-tracked the strategy to ensure a far greater degree of distributed work across workspaces going forward.

We have proved during COVID that remote offlines work, says Jai Cave, technical operations director at UK post facility Envy, in an interview for AV Magazine . Envy rolled out over 100 remote edit suites, and when this period is over, he envisions an increased demand for remote offline for specific projects where it solves a problem. However, a lot of editors, producers, and production managers will want to come back to a facility for the improved creative communication it brings, he says.

He predicts the growth of a blended solution that has editors and producers spend a few days of the week in a facility and work the rest of the week remotely if that suits them.

Sciolette believes that the winning formula will come from the flexibility to take the best of both worlds: stay remote when it’s convenient and meet in person when it’s necessary.

After all, remote video editing workflows present some challenges regardless of the technology in place. For instance, calibrating reference displays demands completing some aspects of production in a specific room. It’s hard to fully recreate every kind of person-to-person interaction virtually.

“In documentaries, more than any other genre, you are writing the story in the edit, and directors feel a loss of control if done remotely,” confirms Jack Jones, technical director at documentary specialist Roundtable. “Directors are keen to get back to the facility.”

Charlotte Layton, commercial director of The Farm Group, recognizes that going totally remote means giving up some key elements of collaboration. “The question is: How do we keep a sense of community? And how do you celebrate an emotional journey when everyone is disparate?” she says.

The producers of a recent broadcast project opted to meet at The Farm Group’s central London location (observing PPE protocols) at regular intervals under lockdown, according to Layton, “to feel more connected” to the work in progress.

“There is a huge benefit to having clients in a suite, however the amount of time they spend with creative talent may change,” says John Rogerson, CEO of London post house Halo. “Remote working is not a silver bullet and only makes sense when a client needs it.”

However, working separately until the very final grade or sign-off stages is convenient for production executives as well as DPs and editors, and it may become a fixture of the industry.

“If traveling to distant locations year after year is affecting your life in a negative way, we’ve now proven it unnecessary and perhaps inefficient,” says Roger Barton, ACE, who helped edit Paramount Pictures’ feature The Tomorrow War under lockdown.

“Personally, I find myself happy cutting at home,” Barton says. “I very much miss the camaraderie, but I’m more creative here with fewer distractions, and I’m probably working more hours than I ever have. I’m happy to do it because it’s on my own schedule, and that creates a balance that I enjoy. The flexibility to do so is one of the lessons I hope we walk away with.”

Barton acknowledges that this won’t be true for everyone. Some are calling on the industry to use the enforced break to put a check on some of its more draconian work practices. Zack Arnold, ACE (Cobra Kai), struck a chord with his argument that decried “the ridiculously long hours, the chronic sleep deprivation, the complete and utter lack of work-life balance, and the lives that are destroyed . . . by the perpetual content machine that is Hollywood” of pre-COVID normality. If ever there was a time to set boundaries and demand change, it’s now, he urged.

If nothing else, the crisis has proved the prudence of a business continuity policy centered on routing media to work-from-home locations. It may also have triggered a change in the way craftspeople work within the industry—some of which may be here for good.

“We’ve all been asking for more remote working and been told up until now that, for security reasons, this wasn’t possible. But now everyone can see just how much more convenient it can be,” says Cheryl Potter, who edited HBO drama The Nevers remotely. “Good luck getting that genie back in the bottle!”

8K: History Repeats Itself

StreamingMedia

There's such an inevitability about 8K UHD content going mainstream that discussions about it are now are invariably sanguine about 12K, 16K, and beyond.

https://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/8K-History-Repeats-Itself-143046.aspx

"8K is beginning to take hold," Nick Ryan, head of product mastering for MainConcept, said on a MainConcept-hosted webinar. "It can be easy to get overly focussed on the technical hurdles but we need to remember that long ago the idea of 4K was scary. Now the industry has accepted it as a gamechanger. I have no doubt we will be having the same concerns about 16K and looking back at 8K as a gamechanger."

8K production is just about cracked, and the distribution challenge is also being solved thanks to new compression and processing techniques.

Chris Chinnock, executive director of the 8K Association, ticked off the expanding 8K ecosystem. These include flagship 8K TVs from all the major brands and next-gen games consoles supporting 8K playback (even if there may not be many 8K games initially).  YouTube and Vimeo host thousands of 8K clips, mostly short form or wildlife, which is seeding 8K the same way 4K did. Production workflows for 8K are understood to be similar to 2K and 4K.

"There are some pain points," Chinnock said. "You need more processing power, memory, and storage, and transport will always be an issue. But guess what? Those were the exact same issues as we experienced with 4K. The bottom line is that the 8K ecosystem looks similar to how 4K did seven years ago. We'll see history repeating for 8K."

Japan's NHK has been broadcasting 8K since December 2018, encoding in HEVC at 80Mbps to 100Mbps and using up an entire satellite transponder.

"They have proven it can be done but it's not commercially viable," Chinnock said. "We will have to move to bandwidths that are more mainstream. 20Mbps to 30Mbps up to 50Mbps is reasonable for deployment."

Fortunately, this is achievable thanks to new codecs including HEVC, VVC, EVC, LCEVC and AVS3 from China, as well as "smart streaming."

Chinnock explained, "Smart streaming is intended to encourage content to be mastered in 8K and then smartly downscaled to a 4K resolution package with some sort of metadata, distributed in 4K, and smartly upscaled to 8K on reception. Ideally the image quality will be close to native full 8K. That is what the 8K Association would like to see implemented. There are positive developments, but it needs nurturing."

MainConcept singled out LCEVC as the most interesting crop of current codecs. The standard, which is shortly to be ratified by MPEG, is compatible with other main baseline codecs and can immediately offer bandwidth savings.

V-Nova, the UK-based developer of the technology behind LCEVC, is a partner with MainConcept. Ryan shared preliminary test data from V-Nova demonstrating how an 8K file encoded in LCEVC-enhanced HEVC/H.265 delivered bitrate reductions of 45% giving a VMAF score of 90.

"For the VMAF score of 95, there was still very significant bitrate reduction," Ryan said. "This just one 8K test but we see this as very promising data. We will continue to work to integrate LCEVC into the MainConcept SDK." 

He argued that HEVC/H.265 is most suitable for 8K today because of the billion devices enabled for HEVC playback in the market.

MainConcept claims its own HEVC software encoding algorithm is 20% more efficient compared to its open source equivalent.  "When you think of the large data for 8K, any saving in file size has a very large impact," Ryan said. The software also allows for 8K live streaming at 120 fps 4:2:2 10 bit for digital signage as well as broadcast application.

MainConcept also flagged what it called hybrid GPU acceleration as a way to further boost 8K streaming efficiency. "This allows you to dial in the best of both software and hardware encoding to accelerate the overall process by up to 2.5x," Ryan said. "For 8K, this will save time and also makes things like archival and live encoding realistic and much more cost-effective."

To back that up, MainConcept claimed that the cost of setting up 8K live encoding using its hybrid GPU technology and a basic hardware mix of Intel processors, Nvidia GPUs, and AJA capture card will set you back $8,000 off-the-shelf. Without using the hybrid GPU and instead running multiple CPUs and high-end Xeon Platinum processors the cost is more than double, it said.

"The takeaway I have is that it is unsafe for studios, content suppliers and the tech suppliers that support them to build their workflow and tech stack based on current technology levels," Ryan said. "Really you need the flexibility to scale for the future without having to overhaul your production pipeline."

Content Resilience

Speaking for Samsung, Des Carey, the firm's head of cinematic innovation, said capturing in 8K was the best way studios now had of futureproofing their content.

"For the longest time, film was the gold standard when it came to archival. Now for the first time we are able to capture at a resolution that is considerably higher than 35mm (he put 35mm at 5.6K). In saying that, embracing change can be difficult."

"Historically speaking the biggest changes in our industry have come from indie filmmakers who drive innovation to crate content. More indie filmmakers today are shooting at higher resolutions than studio projects."

He added, "Remastering a film from 35mm is time consuming, costly and can add artefacts and scratches. With 8K data it is easier to get back to what you initially shot.

"With 8K data we have option to conform at 2K, 4K or 8K and as AI upscaling becomes more robust we will see Hollywood blockbusters shooting at higher resolutions."

An example is Jurassic World: Dominion, currently shooting on 35mm and in 8K on Panavision cameras.

"In 2020, 90% of the large VFX shows are working in 2K even if the final output is 4K DCP. At Samsung, when it comes to displays, we are focused on the AI upscaling aspect. We want to work with the VFX vendors so that processing becomes more robust VFX will be able to turnover at higher rez.

"We want to work with video game developers so they no longer have to trade resolution for framerate. We are trying to find ways of keeping both of those aspirations intact."

Tesla’s connectivity issue is a mere blip, not the road to hell

RedShark

Tesla suffers a global network outage and the internet couldn’t conceal its schadenfreude. With customer’s suffering connectivity issues, such as not being able to connect to their cars through the mobile app, you could feel the glee with which columnists and social media wags sharpened their knives.

https://www.redsharknews.com/teslas-connectivity-issue-is-a-mere-blip-not-the-road-to-hell

Elon Musk may be hard to like (given his trigger-happy expletives and apparent disregard for the virus) but you have to admire his ambition. The techpreneur appears like a Bond villain but should be praised for almost single-handedly dragging the car industry out of its petrolhead phase and into the 21st century.

The outage, on Wednesday, which also impacted Tesla’s internal systems, is not the first. Similar issues happened in 2018, 2017 and 2016. Banks have IT issues with regularity it seems causing all manner of problems for people unable to withdraw cash or pay online. Sony Pictures is one of several high-profile media companies to have been pirated for content and private emails.

While Tesla vehicles are having many connectivity features owners can still access and use their cars. According to Electrek even Tesla owners who primarily use their phones as their car key, the Bluetooth still connects to it to unlock and “start” the vehicle.

So, it’s no big deal and is a glitch to be taken in ones stride on the road to zero carbon emissions. Actually, Musk’s other headline news this week is perhaps more concerning for future car connectivity issues.

At Tesla’s 2020 shareholder’s meeting, Musk “who is well-known for exuberant promises” according to CNBC, predicted the company will be able to make a $25,000 full self-driving car within three years. Part of this dramatically reduced cost (basic Teslas currently cost over $10k more and that’s in the US without Brexit tariffs) is predicated on new battery technology which will be mass produced, be smaller in weight and boost one-charge up to 500 miles.

“About 3 years from now, we’re confident we can make a very compelling $25,000 electric vehicle that’s also fully autonomous,” he claimed.

Autonmous vehicles are the logical direction of travel. Musk has long envisaged a Jetsons’ style future in which the car is merely a screen-wrapped mobile entertainment pod with the logistics of getting from A to B taken care of by AI.

In his recent comic-sci-fi novel Buzz Kill, author David Sosnowski has his teenage hero called George Jedson hack into the Tesla-style supercar of a Zuckerberg-like CEO of a social media giant (‘Quire’) and steal it by driving it all over San Franscisco from the remote comfort of his bedroom.

In the book, Jedson does this to catch the attention of, and ultimately a job with, Quire but more scenarios might paint a more malign intent. Terrorists taking over the traffic grid and turning every car into missiles, for example.

It’s a lazy idea though. Musk is co-chair of OpenAI which has the stated goal of promoting and developing friendly AI in a way that benefits humanity. He’s well aware of the existential threat of rogue AI – aka Cyberdyne Systems - and is determined to do something about it.

Despite seeing $50 billion wiped off Tesla shares this week because of analysts skeptical about Musk’s three year electric car target, would you actually bet against Musk succeeding?

What’s next for the BBC’s technology strategy?

IBC

The absence of a high-placed CTO is an opportunity to divorce the BBC’s tech approach from being wedded to iPlayer, analysts say. 

https://www.ibc.org/trends/whats-next-for-the-bbcs-technology-strategy/6816.article

Unlike many large media organisations, the BBC currently has no-one responsible for technology on its board or executive committee. The resignation of chief technology officer Matthew Postgate last month poses questions about the centrality of technology within the Corporation.  

While programming lies at the heart of the BBC, technology is key to its production and distribution. This year it will spend around £175 million on technology and a further £200 million on distribution. 

“The BBC urgently needs to see its technology strategy as central to the future of the institution,” says William Cooper, founder and chief executive at consultancy Informitv and former BBC head of New Media Operations.  

“In many respects, the BBC is falling behind the technical quality that can be delivered by some of its competitors. It is not currently clear how the BBC plans to address this.” 

The broadcaster has promoted Charlotte Moore to the role of chief content officer and has an interim CTO, Peter O’Kane, reporting to interim chief operating officer Glyn Isherwood but, in its Annual Plan, the BBC has surprisingly little to say about technology.  

“I believe it’s imperative to have a CTO on the board,” says Nigel Walley, managing director at media researcher Decipher.

“It needs a CTO that can balance the needs of broadcast and on-demand and that person should not have control of a consumer facing service or brand.” 

Tony Hall’s departure as director general has left a series of unfinished problems and a significant number of landmines for new DG Tim Davie to defuse. Many of these are cultural and political but there’s a technology issue too which analysts deem rooted in a blind faith in iPlayer. 

“Whenever the subject of digital strategy is raised everyone points to iPlayer, as though its mere existence showed that the BBC had solved its digital future,” Walley says.  

“Decipher has long argued that the iPlayer team was too powerful and were distorting the way the BBC’s tech innovations were introduced to market. Every consumer facing tech innovation had to be plastered with the iPlayer logo, even if there was no iPlayer tech involved, such as BBC content in Sky OnDemand.”

Cooper agrees, saying that the Corporation has come to believe that iPlayer is a product that can compete with the likes of Netflix, rather than simply a means of delivering its programming on demand, which can be delivered by many competing platforms.  

“Yet the technology requirements extend far beyond the BBC iPlayer and underpin every aspect of its operation. The BBC still faces key decisions on whether to invest in traditional broadcasting, which is likely to remain important to viewers and listeners for the foreseeable future.” 

Responding to questions from IBC365, the BBC reiterated that iPlayer is core to the its future.  

“Everyone in the organisation will have a part to play to continue transforming the service,” it stated. “The technology behind this is key – but so is the content, user-experience and way we market iPlayer to viewers.” 

The primacy of broadcast 
Fifteen years after its launch, and iPlayer delivers just 12% of all BBC television viewing. The vast majority of viewers are watching traditional transmissions. 

“The TV industry seems to have spent 10 years denigrating the one major function which allows it to compete against on-demand apps – its broadcast function,” says Walley in a blog.

“Rather than being an Achilles heel, the able to broadcast simultaneously to millions of people at a fixed cost, is a remarkable capability that many of the Silicon Valley giants would love to be able to emulate. It is still the dominant distribution function for BBC content (by hours consumed) but has become the unfashionable relation compared to ‘digital’.” 

This is not to say that the Corporation didn’t need to reinvent broadcast’s role in the face of an on-demand onslaught. However, Walley and Cooper say that the challenge appears to have been ducked by focussing efforts and profile onto its on-demand offering. 

“The BBC has outsourced much of its technology and distribution to third-party service providers, yet has continued to invest in developing iPlayer and more recently BBC Sounds as the key to its future technology and distribution strategy,” says Cooper. “However, other global players with deep pockets are more than capable of competing in this digital domain, and the online technology is becoming commoditised.” 

Platform conundrum
The vast majority of BBC television content is consumed via TV platforms where distribution strategy “has to be informed by ‘tech’ but not ruled by it,” according to Walley. 

Some of these (Freeview, Freesat and Youview) are platforms that the BBC has a share of ownership. Walley argues that these have been under the control of the iPlayer team for too long and decisions have been made that favour iPlayer over the platform’s own interests.  

“The BBC (with help from ITV) have left Freeview and Freesat ill equipped to fight the impending battle with AmazonFire OS and Android TV,” he contends. “The commercial platforms need a more nuanced approach than we have seen.” 

The opportunity to have merged the three into a single, powerful and competitive free-to-air TV platform has probably been missed, he laments. “For the last decade the three UK based TV platforms have been forced to compete with their hands tied behind their back. But there is still time to allow them to spread their offerings.” 

Rather than “meekly handing Freeview customers to Amazon and Google” and to prevent a “Kodak level misjudgement” resulting in no UK-managed TV platforms in play by the end of the decade, the trio of platforms need to work together.  

“[They need to] build a joint free-to-air TV log-in, with a federated log-in system to allow a Freeview or Freesat user to log into the individual apps on each of the platforms via one, unified identity,” Walley prescribes. “That identity could be the basis for a wider TV account (perhaps including BritBox) that should include addressable advertising capability.” 

Walley adds that the BBC’s broadcast channels need to drive innovation around the content and promotion required to capture audience share in a world of growing on-demand. “They need strong independent leaders for each channel with the authority to dictate brand and tech strategy.  Charlotte Moore’s move is perhaps an indication that Tim Davie gets this need.” 

The BBC Executive and tech 
In recent years, the post of CTO has attracted some controversy. Postgate’s predecessor, John Linwood, won an unfair dismissal claim after his contract was terminated following the failure of the Digital Media Initiative, the development of which it brought in-house. This integrated digital production and archiving system was scrapped at a cost of nearly £100 million. The National Audit Office was scathing in its report, concluding that “The level of assurance and scrutiny that the BBC executive applied to the DMI was insufficient for a high-value and strategically important programme that involved significant risks.”  

Since then, Postgate rose rapidly from being a member of the management team for BBC iPlayer, to head of R&D, becoming CTO in 2014. “His degree in politics served him well in navigating the organisation,” assesses Cooper. “His lack of an engineering background did not appear to impede his progress.” 

Postgate saw the future of the BBC as online and digital first. “I think the whole industry is moving away from thinking of video and audio as hermetically sealed and toward an idea where we are no longer broadcasters but datacasters,” he said in a 2015 Streaming Media interview.

Nonetheless, there is still a perceived lack of tech understanding among BBC executives. “Not only general tech understanding,” says Walley, “but even understanding of stuff that should be core to their business.  A very recent channel head had to have Freeview explained to them when they took the top job,” he says. 

Two decades ago, Cooper says, it seemed that technology innovation was at least appreciated as strategically important at the BBC, even if it was properly understood by relatively few senior executives. 
 
“Without an informed and influential voice responsible for technology leadership and governance at the top table of the BBC, the institution risks being outmanoeuvred by competitors, like Sky and Netflix, that see technology as core to their business,” he warns. “So far it has offered a few online trials in UHD but has no announced plan to upgrade its transmission standards.” 

In defence of Davie 
The Charter under which the BBC operates provides an obligation to “promote technological innovation, and maintain a leading role in research and development, that supports the effective fulfilment of its Mission and the promotion of the Public Purposes.” Significantly, it says the BBC must “focus on technical innovation” to support the delivery of its services, “seek to work in partnership with other organisations” and “share, as far as is reasonable, its research and development knowledge and technologies.” 

“There is no doubt the BBC can only deliver on its mission through the continued development and exploitation of new technology,” says Richard Lindsay-Davies, CEO, DTG, which works with the UK’s broadcasters to maintain standards across digital TV.  

“This is demonstrated by an impressive depth and breadth of technical expertise capability distributed across the entire organisation, and its commitment to R&D.” 

Given the 20+ list of published BBC engineering management salaries, Lindsay-Davies urges us not to read anything into the streamlined Executive Committee.  

“The reporting line of this role has changed quite frequently over the years from the Controller of Engineering being No.3 in command in the ‘30s, through the CTO reporting to the COO/DGG for many years, and more recently being part of a larger Executive Committee. Irrespective of who is on the Executive Committee I am sure Tim will want to be in the room with the right experts as mission-critical technology is discussed, whether it be radio waves, AI or super-computers creating and curating personalised content instances.” 

Davie is a former chair and director of Freesat where he worked alongside Lindsay-Davies. “There is no question that innovation is high on Tim’s agenda,” he says. 

Indeed, Davie recognised this in his first speech as DG, saying that “…we will be in a hybrid world for decades to come…[and] We will need to be cutting edge in our use of technology to join up the BBC, improving search, recommendations and access. And we must use the data we hold to create a closer relationship with those we serve.” 

Collaboration is key 
The BBC is also committed to a new technology hub in Newcastle. The hub, part of a move to relocate BBC functions outside the capital, will develop technology that underpins iPlayer and BBC Sounds. 

Other recent examples of the BBC’s technologically-driven contribution to the UK digital economy listed by the DTG include: 

Embracing IP technologies within studio complexes such as Cardiff; sustainability in every area from operations to studios and distribution; and accessibility – an area with great scope for development as new technologies emerge such as object-based assets.  

“In my opinion, the BBC contribution to open international technical standards, and therefore freedom of speech, is worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize,” asserts Lindsay-Davies. 

What next? 
The DTG has a number of technologies where it thinks the BBC needs to be playing. From accessible, traditional viewing, “to AI-curated, highly personalised experiences that seamlessly reflect the individual, television connects people,” the DTG remains confident that the BBC and the UK technology industry is able to step up and deliver.  

“Collaboration is key,” stresses Lindsay-Davies. “It will be critical for other players in the sector to keep pace, challenge and contribute to the next phase of digital television innovation.” 

Others think BBC R&D could share the same fate as IRT, the joint technology research institute of the public broadcasters of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It is being shut down in part explained by shareholder ZDF because there is less need for broadcast-specific knowledge, as provided by IRT. 

“In terms of blue-sky R&D tech, I am not sure we want the BBC doing that stuff anymore,” says Walley. “The idea of BBC boffins in brown coats working on AI and virtual reality is a nonsense.  It’s a throwback to the patrician age of Reith.” 

Walley also urges BBC3 to be brought back into the broadcast line up – but as a fundamentally innovative, fully IP channel.   

“To remove it entirely from the broadcast line up was an act of cultural vandalism that is still shocking,” he says.  “A fully interactive IP BBC3 could be put at the centre of a project to define the role of a broadcast channel in a digital world. It should have its own separate and distinct presence in the on-demand world, tied to its core linear IP output but highly experimental in its approach to content and distribution. It could be the first brand to link TV and radio output in an online world.”  

It is formally the responsibility of the Board to ensure that the BBC fulfils its functions. The Board includes the DG or chief executive officer, three other executives and a number of non-executive members. It is for the Board to appoint members to ensure that they collectively have the range of skills and experience to fulfil its functions. 
 
“In practice, the Board delegates responsibilities to its Executive Committee,” Cooper says. “Given the strategic importance of technology, one might expect to see its representation at at least the Executive Committee.” 
 
Davie, says Cooper, would be well advised to appoint a CTO that can embrace both broadcast and online technologies as well as the general information and communications technologies of the corporation. 

The BBC emphasised to IBC365 that technology will be a core part of the new Chief Operating Officer’s role.   

“We’ll use tech, as well as the data we know about our audiences - to help maximise how much value we can give people online,” it stated.  

“This will mean more joined-up products and services that are simple to navigate between – and content and programmes easier to find.  Design and Engineering (of which R&D is part) will be a key part of this division to help us achieve this. Driving the growth and development of BBC iPlayer, BBC Sounds and BBC News online are the key digital prioritise for the BBC – so our teams will be fully focused on this.” 

The Atlantic Production Center Relies on Sohonet Exchange for Networking Services During COVID and Beyond

copywritten for Sohonet

With over 400,000 square feet of rentable space, The Atlantic Production Center (APC) in Manhattan is the newest and arguably fittest filmmaking facility on the block. 

https://www.sohonet.com/2020/09/17/the-atlantic-production-center/

 A joint partnership between SL Green, one of New York City’s largest office landlords, and seasoned production house Atlantic Pictures, The APC is a flexible office solution spanning ten floors at 625 Madison Avenue dedicated to servicing the needs of television, film, and media-related productions of any size. 

Opened in January 2020, forced by COVID-19 to shutter three months later, and re-opened in July, The APC has already hosted an incredible range of clients including HBO Max, BET, Netflix, FOX and Samsung, just to name a few.  

“We’ve been busy from day one and now that we’re able to be up and running again the phones haven’t stopped ringing,” reports Amanda Weisenthal, VP of Operations. “We’re not just in a prime location – we know exactly what productions need.” 

The APC offers a unique opportunity for productions to maintain their entire back office in one place including ideal spaces for production, set dressing and props, wardrobe, and executive suites. 

“Key facilities include first class communications and connectivity which is why we brought in Sohonet Exchange even ahead of our soft launch,” Weisenthal explains. “We understand that anyone looking for production space requires a turnkey communications solution and a fast service. They don’t need to be dealing with red tape. Sohonet Exchange has a pedigree of working on the highest-profile shows so they were our first choice as sole communications provider.” 

Sohonet Exchange supplies and manages Internet, networking, wireless and voice solutions on behalf of clients at The APC. 

“Any tenant who comes in to The APC needs extensive comms and Sohonet Exchange has been super responsive. They reach out to the tenant to arrange their exact needs and are really proactive in setting up a tailored phone and WiFi system whether that’s for one day, a week or over months of the tenancy. If there’s any issue, they come right in and take care of it. They understand the pace of the production which many providers simply do not.” 

Weisenthal joined The APC to guide its launch (alongside Operations Manager Lance Johnson) after extensive experience as location scout for Paramount, Showtime and Netflix. “We’re open 24/7 which is very rare for New York,” she says. “I know from my time in locations that finding an office that’s going to allow you to film at 9 am is a pretty big deal.” 

The sheer size of its professionally managed space has led to the surge in enquiries as lockdown is eased. For example, when anyone enters the building, they are temperature tested for the virus using thermo-imaging, a technique which means people don’t have to be stopped or touched. 

“Our space is phenomenal for what’s going on,” Weisenthal says. “If you’re looking for a production space with 50 or 100 offices, we will extend you extra room for social distancing. If you want everybody to have their own office to accommodate safe zones for executives and crew, we will make it happen. If you need just one floor, we will give you multiple floors. We are putting that into our framework as standard and at reduced rates.

“Sohonet Exchange is right there with us. There’s no messing around. Whatever your needs, you get it and you get it quickly and professionally.” 

From conversations with clients including the Studio majors Weisenthal says they are very clear about what needs to happen to go forward in New York City.  

“Everyone is taking preparation for getting back to work very seriously and because of that I think the outlook is positive. I believe that by the end of the year major feature films will be being shot in the city again. 

“We want you in our space. We will do it in a safe manner and we won’t cut corners.” 

Moving Picture, Audio, and Data Coding by Artificial Intelligence: "A New Way to Make Money"

StreamingMedia

The video compression industry is ready to reinvent itself, and new standards-setting body Moving Picture, Audio and Data Coding by Artificial Intelligence (MPAI) is the mechanism to drive it, according to Thierry Fautier, President-Chair of the Ultra HD Forum and an influential voice in the shifting sands of codec development.

https://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/News/Online-Video-News/Moving-Picture-Audio-and-Data-Coding-by-Artificial-Intelligence-A-New-Way-to-Make-Money-142899.aspx

Speaking on an IABM-hosted Future Trends webinar about Imaging & Immersive, Fautier (who is also VP Video Strategy for Harmonic) was joined by MPAI founder and Leonardo Chiariglione, who launched the MPEG standards committee for ISO/IEC in 1988 and resigned two months ago.

"The problem confronting our industry is the fragmentation of license pools," underlined Fautier.  "This is blocking the evolution of technology."

Fautier elaborated on the current impasse at MPEG. The media coding industry is trying to move from a position of "pulling their hair out," he said, about how to implement codecs like HEVC and potentially VVC commercially.

Rival AOM, meanwhile, is "only selecting the tools that will be patent-free. [This means that] at the end of the day nobody is making money in a process which is very friendly to big companies like Netflix, Amazon, Apple and Google."

The third approach is that of MPAI. The non-profit organisation plans to develop new technical specifications of data coding, using AI to bridge the gap between those tech specs and their practical use through Intellectual Property Rights Guidelines, such as Framework Licences.

"Here is an opportunity for people to make money," Fautier said. "There will be more buy-in from license sources and licensees. You need to be upfront with those who use the technology. I believe MPAI's approach is the right one. It's a very exciting time where the video industry is ready to reinvent itself."

Whereas Fautier insists the industry is ready to pay certain fees for using technology provided it has insurance for the amount they pay, Chiariglione said MPAI was open-minded to open source.

"In my long MPEG days, I fought hard to convince a significant number of members to think that MPEG shouldn't just be something that has only one business model. We shouldn't be religious about it."

The IABM's CTO Stan Moote shared research from its latest industry report identifying COVID-related technologies including virtualization, cloud and remote production as the tech enablers at the top of media industry lists. Imaging and immersive applications like 8K HDR, VR, and MR were a little further down but still high on people's agendas.

"Immersive applications are pointless without practical compression techniques," Moot said. "What is at stake in the battle for video compression is what makes sense from a technical and business perspective."

Fragmentation is only getting more pronounced. This week the Chinese consortia behind AVS2 is on verge of releasing AVS3 targeting 8K content.

Fautier called AVS3 an alternative in case people are not satisfied with 'western' technology, "though we don't know if it will be a success outside China."

Meanwhile, HEVC patent holder InterDigital has announced that it has developed software to simplify and accelerate AI-based video compression research. CompressAI allows researchers to quickly design, train, test, and evaluate AI-based codecs. It said the open source platform (publicly available on Github) is already being used to support the development of next generation image and video codecs.

The demand for more immersive content seems to have accelerated under COVID-19.

"While 5.1 was the standard we're seeing that expand," said Greg Chin of Avid on the IABM panel. "There's no request for stereo-only mixes. There is a large and primary immersive component to shows now."

The lion's share on the audio side is taken by Dolby Atmos, but Chin said there was interest in every single areas of immersive sound, including binaural and ambisonic techniques.

Raul Aldrey, chief business officer of MediaKind, said that opportunities for implementing immersive applications were growing into 2020, and while there has been an enforced dip in the first half of the year, these plans haven't gone away.

"We're seeing these things come back to the forefront of discussion," he said.

A current example is cycling's premier event Tour de France. In cooperation with cycling app Zwift fans can join the race on their own bikes at home and compete head to head with the pros.

"There's a pressing need for live events to deliver an experience to fans at home in the absence of fans at the stadia," Aldrey said, predicting that there will be more and more of these immersive experiences crossing over into fan engagement.

Betting is also likely to merge into the mainstream of the live sports experience, enabled by real-time interaction and the growing number of states and countries where sports betting on TV is legal.

Peter Kirkup, group technical solutions manager at AR/MR solutions developer disguise, said the pandemic has demonstrated that audiences are hungry for the immersion they would experience in a live context.

"I think the new normal we will all go into will benefit from the outcome of all of this innovation," he said. "There will be new capabilities and new technologies on top of new normal which will enable us to create new more amazing things. We've already seen extended reality use cases for viewers watching a live stream of an event at home. This will accelerate even after, partly because audience expectations are now set much higher."

Aldrey also predicted that 8K will be driven by the postponed Tokyo Games. "There aren't many devices [capable of receiving 8K] in the market, but the Olympics will be used to drive 8K and other immersive experiences into the mainstream. I would say we'll see a cascade of these experiences and events beginning next year."

Pay-TV reconfigures as super-curator

CSI

p12 September https://www.csimagazine.com/eblast/Digital_Editions/September2020/CSI-DigitalEdition-September2020.pdf

The TV industry is still fragmenting as consumers desert linear and pay-TV in favour of SVOD stacking but there’s a wind of change blowing toward consolidation.

“What has been disaggregated will ultimately be reaggregated albeit not in quite the same fashion,” says Gideon Gilboa is the EVP of Product, Marketing, and Solutions at Kaltura.

“I’m very bullish on aggregation,” says Paul Pastor, part of the exec team for Disney ABC’s stake in Hulu now Chief Business Officer for OTT platform provider Firstlight Media. “We haven’t yet seen the full cycle of aggregation happen… there is a lot of opportunity in the market right now.”

Pay-TV companies are prioritising service/channel bundles and looking to SVOD aggregation, agrees Guy Bisson, Research Director, Ampere Analysis; “Aggregation is the next battle ground.”

“There is clear movement in this direction,” confirms Adam Davies, Senior Manager Product Marketing at Synamedia. “Service providers are adding their own OTT services, developing more flexible pricing and commercial models and creating partnerships with pure OTT players to create the new pay-TV bundle.”

They are doing this, he adds, because it is what consumers have proven they want time and time again.

Deloitte’s latest Digital Media Trends study finds the average U.S. consumer paying for four streaming-video services, up from three before the pandemic.  As more media providers join the SVOD fray, it’s putting pressure on content and pricing.

“Consumers are increasingly frustrated in trying to navigate the flood of streaming options, all while trying to manage costs,” says Deloitte vice chair Kevin Westcott.

Now they’ve got the choice, it seems consumers do not want to do their own aggregation. “They want the flexibility and choice, but having so many fragmented content silos and subscriptions creates friction and frustration, particularly at the point of wanting to be entertained,” says Peter Docherty, Founder and CTO, ThinkAnalytics. “The discovery experience across multiple SVODs and pay-TV makes the viewers’ job even more difficult and time consuming.”

“Content owners and platform operators should always follow the end consumer and what they are generally looking for is to get as much specific content for their needs as easily as possible,” underlines Metrological CEO, Jeroen Ghijsen.

Service complexity

“Multiple services mean a certain amount of complexity for viewers who ultimately want to switch the TV on and find something to watch,” says Alex Wilkinson, Head of Sales and Marketing, EMEA & LatAm, Accedo. “This will likely be more apparent as the global climate returns to some level of normality and consumers get back to much busier lives. It also means that often consumers gravitate to whichever service has the most choice and either leave the others mostly unused or unsubscribe.”

In theory, offering up more content drives more opportunities for engagement, generating greater data sets and improving the likelihood that investments in technology and content will drive revenue.

“For operators, the aggregator model means having more data on what the consumer is watching and how they are interacting with different video services within a bundle,” Wilkinson says. “It shifts control to the pay-TV provider and gives them access to much more intricate viewing data, which can be used to ensure stickiness and reduce churn.”

Content providers also want to have better insights into how their content is being consumed. “They can then make better decisions from a content production point of view, making it easier to know what type of content to green-light,” says Erik Ramberg, VP, Head of Global Business Development, MediaKind. “If they own the service themselves, they are going to have clear brand association and massive amounts of data into how their consumers behave.”

The service provider needs to bring solutions that solves problems for the content provider and the consumer. “From the consumer perspective, this means they are able to offer more than just every episode of a series (such as sneak previews, recaps and director commentaries), therefore leading to a far richer space that is still appropriate to the brand,” shares Ramberg. “By incorporating the branded DTC experience into the service providers’ platform, consumers can better engage with the content providers’ brand.”

The pay-TV opportunity

Application platform vendors and UI developers understandably believe operators are in a unique position to deliver aggregated video experiences that provide reach and engagement—where their TV App Stores and UIs act as the super aggregator. These reduce barriers to entry for new viewers; surface content and apps with integrated search and discovery and provide enhanced monetisation opportunities.

“The easiest way for SVODs to get onto the big screen is through the STB,” says Ghijsen. “The single remote control remains of primary importance. It is operators who are in pole position to assume the role of super aggregator.”

He compares the super-aggregator model to that of a warehouse. “You don’t mind what is in your warehouse – it could be niche and specialist. As long as somebody interested, you can sell it.”

Cloud-based technologies of course make the shelf-space of the ‘warehouse’ virtual and unlimited. At the same time, having billing all in one location makes it easier for consumers to monitor spend and to add and remove packages at will.

Amino says its pay-TV customers see super aggregation as key to remaining relevant to their consumers.

“If you’re a large dominant national or regional pay-TV operator, you already have a collection of channel bundles that are popular with consumers, you’re already offering multiscreen and you’re merging OTT with your broadcast or IPTV services,” explains Jamie Mackinlay, SVP Global Sales and Marketing.

Amino’s prescription for Tier 1 operators is to maintain the quality of content bundles combined with niche OTT and multiscreen bundles and to ‘super aggregate’ with as many of the top-tier SVOD services as possible.

“If you’re a Tier-2 operator, you’re probably in a similar but weaker position,” he says. “For these, aggressively following a super aggregation strategy is a way of competing with the dominant player in your market and defending your position relative to a vMVPD and other streaming providers.”

For Tier-3 pay-TV operators, super aggregation is even more important. With content costs rising and access to it diminishing as content makers go direct to consumer, super aggregation is a matter of survival – “without it you may become less and less relevant to the consumer,” Mackinlay says.

Content owners, like a Discovery or A&E, which built their business on the low carriage cost of super distribution on cable need to fundamentally change their operating model, believes Pastor.

“The reality is those business are maturing and declining in terms of losing pay-TV subs as people have switched to DTC,” he says. “Many of these companies are just treading water because of the fixed costs (of infrastructure, content, organisation) required to run the business. For those looking to transition to digital it is not enough simply to change the narrative of their company. They are trading what used to be a 50% margin business for one that barely eeks out 10%.”

Consequently, Pastor predicts a wave of aggregation driven by M&A activity, especially in the post-Covid era, and from joint ventures. “Like Hulu, these JVs will bring together niche brands on one platform where they can take advantage of ripping out some of their cost structures, generate more robust data sets and offer a more expensive, high margin proposition to subscribers.”

Operators themselves have by and large transitioned to high margin, high revenue predictability against broadband delivery, he says. “They need to broaden the number of use cases they can provide their consumers against that pipe and make it unbelievably sticky so that you can upscale the opportunity within any individual household. There’s a huge opportunity in the telco space in delivering these services over 5G and home networks since for the first time telcos and mobile operators have a competitive offering to Docsis 3.1.”

Wilkinson observes that mobile operators have seen aggregation as “a simpler solution” to offering a rich content bundle “that retains users with the telco rather than the full overhead of trying to be a OTT broadcaster.”

 

Super aggregation vs universal syndication

Vodafone, for example, is rolling out its TV service that aggregates linear, VOD and OTT content across markets including Greece, Romania, Portugal, Spain and Italy. It is doing so using Kaltura’s Cloud TV technology which speeds deployment to as little as seven months.

“We are providing out of the box scale for operators and broadcasters who cannot afford to invest billions of dollars to build a platform feature set to compete with a Disney or Netflix,” says Gilboa.

Kaltura says its tools and services offer a “white label Netflix” for both super aggregators and “universal syndicators” where content providers want to push their content everywhere.

“Every media company we work with are looking for a way to distribute direct to consumer and also to syndicate their content from the same DTC stream into the super aggregator's experience,” he says. [for more on Kaltura’s model see https://www.csimagazine.com/csi/Kaltura-close-to-powering-100m-users.php]

 

New payTV bundle, same as the old?

While there are some consumers who will continue to fulfil the role of aggregator themselves, the vast majority of us are thought to prefer the simplicity of getting content delivered in one bundle by an operator.

“This is especially true if they are already a subscriber,” Wilkinson says. “Bundled services often deliver price savings for consumers, which makes it all the more attractive.”

It is increasingly apparent that the relatively cheap price of SVOD subs are rising. The MIDiA Index https://www.midiaresearch.com/blog/is-streaming-making-it-harder-and-more-expensive-for-consumers-to-access-video-content reveals that that the most in demand TV shows of June this year remain siloed behind three to four differing services with a combined monthly price point of U$78.96. Not only is the price point higher than for a traditional pay-TV skinny bundle, but it also requires signing up to up to four different subscriptions, managing those billing relationships and the associated differing user experiences on the various services.  The result, says the analyst’s Tim Mulligan, is a “suboptimal” viewing experience.

Amid intensifying competition from Disney+, HBO Max, Apple TV+ and others, Netflix has seen its pricing power grow over the five months to May 2020.

According to a study of American consumers published by analyst Cowen & Co. Netflix customers who said they would be willing to pay more than they currently do rose from 47% in December 2019 to 55% in May. Among respondents who stream more than seven hours per week of Netflix content willingness to pay more rose from 52% to 60% over the same period.

Netflix last raised prices in Q1 2019 and the question is when, not if, it will do so again.

Meanwhile vMVPDs such as Sling TV and YouTube.tv are subject to the same rising content costs as pay-TV providers

“The risk that many of the services will simply take up the bad habits of the old cable/satellite providers is real, an example being Youtube.tv and its pricing/channel changes which look all too similar to a cable TV company,” says Wilkinson. “The biggest change now is that customers are willing and now able to move if they find the offering and pricing no longer suits them.”

Ramberg blames content providers who forced pay bundles to get fatter and fatter. “People have been unfairly pointing the finger at service providers and operators, who are not the sole source of the unsatisfactory, bloated pay-TV bundle. When an operator bought one channel, they were also forced to buy six or seven other channels. More recently, this also includes the acquisition of SVOD library content, as well as some transactional VOD offerings.”

Mackinlay also thinks channel bundling “an over-maligned” content model; “The pay-TV mega-bundle is the worst form of video delivery, except for all those others that have been tried,” he says, paraphrasing Winston Churchill.

Winning platforms, he insists, must provide a combination of price, choice and quality and developments in content discovery techniques will remove many of the issues with the bundle model. “The goal is not for super aggregation to result in bigger, more complex bundles, but to provide flexibility and convenience in accessing a wide variety of content.”

 

Evolution of aggregation

Super aggregation is only in its infancy and likely to evolve in different ways. Gilboa suggests a further unbundling of SVOD content to enable aggregators to offer subsets of content. He explains, “HBO or Netflix, for example, could offer aggregators different pieces of their libraries inside an app tailored for a super aggregator. An app could bundle the best original content from a variety of SVODs related to political drama, for example. Instead of subscribing to three services to view the content they love, the consumer pays for one as part of a super aggregation bundle.”

Kai-Christian Borchers, MD, 3 Screen Solutions agrees: “We’re inching toward a trend where some traditional pay-TV providers are becoming resellers. In future, they may even seek to select certain elements of Netflix, or Prime Video or HBO and package these, for instance, along with very targeted genre-based SVOD services, to create a customised service that truly appeals to the viewer.

“TV content thus becomes more of a marketplace, but the operator can again become the subscriber’s best friend and helpful curator. Subscribers gets exactly what they want, and only has to pay one simple bill to get it all. Unsubscribing is easy too, but the customer also knows that by cancelling, all of their preferences, profile and personalisation disappears, so they’ll think twice.”

Another emerging trend is that of the operator as an app, whereby the aggregation model will move onto other platforms. “Consumers are increasingly looking to move away from the STB,” says Wilkinson. “If operators are able to create a service on a mobile device or connected TV that aggregates all of the content, and includes bills and everything else a consumer needs, it is likely to be an attractive proposition.  It becomes much more of a proposition for people that don’t want to subscribe to a £50 per month pay-TV contract. That may seem less appealing for the pay TV providers, but it will be extremely interesting for consumers.”

Borchers points to the phenomenon of “co-watching” which has rocketed during lockdown on services such Twitch, mimicked by operators BT Sport around live sport.

“People’s natural appetite for watching the same content, perhaps together, is predominantly going completely unsatisfied. This new co-watching viewing experience, whereby your friends and family are sharing an experience with you, and interacting with you even though physically separated, will grow significantly in the next few years. Services offering this type of experience will pop up more and more.”

Nonetheless the basics of success for pay-TV remain the same: “The viewer shouldn’t need to know exactly where the content came from or the specific controls a particular SVOD app might want them to use – they just want to watch the content,” says Docherty. “Having this seamless experience gives consumers the choice they want. Pay-TV providers ensure they reap the benefits of providing the end user experience, being the first point of contact, and importantly, of capturing the data to better understand consumer preferences.”