Local Stations Urged To Go Hyperlocal and Stream It

NAB Amplify

Local TV stations have been making hay for the best part of two decades by charging cable companies retransmission fees. Cord cutting and streaming are an existential threat to their future.

https://amplify.nabshow.com/articles/local-stations-urged-to-go-hyperlocal-and-stream-it/

According to reporting at CNBC, which ran interviews with executives at Scripps and Sinclair, the networks are fighting back.

The biggest concern for network affiliates is the potential loss of billions of dollars in retransmission fees as Americans ditch pay-TV.

As the article explains, for the past decade, broadcast station groups have collected fees from pay-TV operators — CNBC parent Comcast included — for the right to carry their stations.

Total retransmission fees paid to station group owners had reached more than $10 billion by 2018 according to an S&P Global report, “Retrans Projections Update: Sub Rates Continue To Rise,” which predicts fees will rise to $15 billion by 2023.

Total broadcast retransmission & visual sub carriage fees projections, 2006-2024. Cr: S&P Global Market Intelligence

But there the gravy train may stop, as audiences pile onto ad-supported and paid subscription streaming services.

The question facing local TV, which is still in pole position to provide local content including news, sports and community programming, is whether it can find a technology and business model to match.

Scripps for example plans to rejuvenate the good old antenna. As consumers shift away from traditional pay TV and toward subscription streaming services, the digital antenna will emerge as a necessary component of people’s viewing habits, CEO Adam Symson said.

Scripps is apparently working on an education campaign to convince folk of the benefit of an antenna for delivering free to air TV as supplement to streaming services.

While this may succeed for a certain generation there are a couple of fatal flaws. One if that there are no retransmission fees associated with an antenna, so broadcast TV would have to rely on local advertising revenue and secondly, an antenna doesn’t exactly catch the imagination.

“When you say antenna, people think ‘old fashioned,’” Jack Perry, founder and CEO of Syncbak, is quoted saying. “If you want to use an antenna, great, but there needs to be a streaming solution.”

Syncbak takes local over-the-air broadcast streams and delivers them to popular streaming destinations like CBS All Access, Hulu, Amazon, fuboTV and NFL. It claims its technology reaches 99 percent of the US population across 209 markets, representing more than 400 stations and all major networks including CBS, ABC, FOX, NBC and the CW.

Sinclair Broadcast has decided to develop its own free linear service streaming service called Stirr. This includes Sinclair station local news programs and other local content specifically made for streaming — and it’s the company’s plan to go direct to consumers.

“If you look at the ratings so far, it counters this notion that local stations are nothing but network programming,” Ware said. “These stations have meaningful value because of the local content they’re offering.”

Another option is ATSC 3.0, so-called Next-Gen TV, which merges over-the-air programming with IPTV, giving local broadcasters the option to deliver highly localized as well as national content, or to open up temporary event specific channels (around a news or weather event, for example).

It’s accessible with new smart TVs providing you have one and you live in one of the 26 cities that have had ATSC 3.0 rolled out (that number rises to 50 by this fall, including New York and Miami.

Whatever the solution, the key for broadcasters is to start thinking of new revenue streams in case retransmission fees eventually plateau and decline. The key ingredient, according to Perry, is more creative “hyperlocal” programming that only a community broadcaster can provide — content that goes beyond local news, which tends to appeal to ageing age group.

 

NextGen TV News Literacy App Shows Potential of ATSC 3.0

NAB Amplify

Fake news has become weaponized in politics and spreads like wild fire on social media. Now local TV stations are fighting back with NextGen TV.

https://amplify.nabshow.com/articles/nextgen-tv-news-literacy-app-shows-potential-of-atsc-3-0-nab-show-premiere-rewind/

An astonishing 8.6 billion incidents of engagement with unreliable news occurred on social media in 2019 — doubling to a staggering 16.3 billion last year, per NewsGuard Analysis.

Not only is misinformation a risk to life, as in the Capitol riots, it is undermining the trusted relationship communities have with TV news.

EW Scripps is doing something about it. Its executives shared a demo of a News Literacy app it has built using ATSC 3.0 with NAB and viewable now at NAB Show Premiere, “How Newsrooms Can Engage Audiences With NextGen TV.”

Almost a quarter of US TV households are already in a market with a NextGen TV signal with many more launching this year.

NextGen TV allows broadcasters o to write and deliver their own application as part of their over-the-air communications. That’s because ATSC 3.0 is the world’s first terrestrial broadcast standard to use IP as its transport layer.

“Among other things this enables broadcasters to deliver content via broadcast as well as broadband,” explained Sam Matheny CTO NAB. “A NextGen compatible TV set can then combine these into a personalized experience. The apps are written in HTML 5, more commonly associated with authoring in web browser, but NextGen means audiences can think of their entire TV screen as a web browser.

“They will have the opportunity to either lean back and be informed as always or lean in and engage further,” he said.

Using ATSC 3.0, EW Scripps with consultant and integrator Fincons Group has developed a broadcast app for news literacy to help people recognize false news. It uses interactive features such as polls and quizzes to encourage viewers to engage with news stories in real time. Viewers participate via their remote control or app on their smartphone.

Elen Weiss, Washington Bureau chief for EW Scripps, said, “News literacy is a fundamental life skill. It teaches us that all communication is not created equal. News literacy is about enabling citizens to be active in our democracy by providing the tools to determine what news to trust, to share and what information to act on. The public is being assaulted with lots of information that might be seen as credible only because bad information is masked.”

Unmasking fake news is part of the pact that broadcasters have with their audience.

“We want to create a better source of trust and say to consumer that when you watch something from Scripps these are the facts, here is the background and here are our sources,” said Sean McGarvy, senior director content strategy at Scripps. “We want to be able to push forward fact-based reporting and this tech enables us to do that.”

While some people either don’t care or willfully seek out the news that just matches their existing opinions, many other citizens do care about the veracity of their information.

“It’s about empowering the audience to get more information so they don’t have to shop around for multiple sources,” McGarvy argued. “If we package it correctly, they will have all the information they need. We want to use NextGen to continue to give audiences the big picture as well as granular perspectives on an event.”

For example, a Tweet from January 5th, the day before the Capitol riots, depicted large crowds rallying ahead of the Save America March. Is it true or false? the Scripps app asks. Turns out to be false with the picture actually taken from a rally in 2018.

Another example: a picture of soldiers sleeping on the floor of the Capitol building was misreported on social and shared thousands of times, as showing dozens of military dead.

In theory, each time such an article appears the Scripps app places a red marker indicating whether the source can be trusted or not.

Scripps is said to have “a conservative and a liberal CEO to ensure stories are not biased.”

“This is opening up our notebooks to share where we got the information,” said Weiss. “At the same time, we don’t want to overwhelm viewers with information either. We will experiment with what the tolerance is and how our newsroom staff are capable of mounting this kind of effort. It will take more people to make this kind of reporting available.”

With news rooms under massive pressure to reduce staff counts, that the new interactive app requires more time and effort of the journalists, producers and tech teams will see such engagement limited to certain events, rather than spread across all newscasts.

“We can take the same tech team familiar with Javascript and HTML and OTT and apply them directly to NextGen TV. There is no need to ramp up new skills,” said Bryan Dunbar, CTO. “We don’t generally work that directly with the newsrooms but we may have to now and build some new tools that news teams can customize with our help to get a specific point across.”

 

TV Industry Wants More WFH Flexibility Post-Pandemic

NAB Amplify 

After the immediate rush to keep communication channels open using the fastest and most easy to adopt video conference technologies, employers are now getting to grips with a fundamentally altered working landscape. These are structural questions about what constitutes the best way to work as a team going underpinned by anecdotal and qualitative studies indicating that people want a much more balanced home and office work life.

https://amplify.nabshow.com/articles/tv-industry-wants-more-wfh-flexibility-post-pandemic/

The sudden increase in remote working has driven forward the demand for a seamless working experience, regardless of location. Employees don’t want to only work from home (WFH). A WeWork and brightspot study, “How to build a flexible real estate portfolio of the future,” showed that 90% of employees say they want to be in an office at least once a week.

Futuresource Consulting research suggests that with many people find limitations with WFH (lack of space and privacy, to name a couple) and expects hybrid experiences to emerge.

A new report suggests that only 9% of TV industry staffers want to return full time to the office.

The TellyCast/WorkShare Consulting Content Industry Monitor found that the vast majority of TV industry office workers are looking forward to a balance of working environments post-pandemic.

Nearly half of all respondents preferred either three days per week (26%) or two days a week (21%) back in their regular pre-pandemic office space.

Despite the majority (60%) saying that work longer hours at home, nearly a third (30%) found they were more productive at home, perhaps without having to commute or contend so much with office politics.

Stress levels were quite high though with 55% of TV execs reporting an increase in stress during the pandemic. Perhaps this is understandable given the situation and lack of certainty about so many things, including jobs, but another contributing factor was video calling — a sizeable 43% found video meetings went on too long.

The TellyCast/WorkShare report does though suggest the industry will emerge strongly from the impact of the last twelve months. The vast majority (81%) said they thought their own company was doing enough to support staff, although this figure dropped to 64% when it came to national government efforts. A notable 77% were confident or extremely confident of maintaining their job within the next six months — during which time many state furlough programs will come to an end.

More than half (53%) of respondents think the content industry will witness a “roaring twenties” effect as society gets back to normal, but the major blight on this landscape is the lack of representation of Asian, Black and other minority ethnic people within the TV industry.

Eighty-three percent of executives pointed out a lack of diverse representation in the industry with 66% blaming the lack of a level playing field.

 

Molinare keeps remote solutions on the service menu

copywritten for Sohonet

It takes a brave soul to swap jobs in the midst of a pandemic, but Darren Woolfson was up for a challenge. He left the Pinewood Group to re-join Molinare last May as Director of Technology & Visual Services. Soho’s iconic full-service postproduction house had been forced, like every other media business, to revert to ‘at home’ workflows.

https://www.sohonet.com/our-resources/blogs/molinare-keeps-remote-solutions-on-the-service-menu/

“When I arrived at the facility, a lot of gear such as Baselight and Avid, had been moved to people’s homes as a short-term solution to business continuity,” Woolfson explains. “I wanted to get the media back into Molinare and provide a remote control solution to improve the workflow.

Security was one aspect but not the only one. “There are genuine security issues and perceived ones,” Woolfson says. “Having media outside your facility is a perceived issue but how genuinely a major issue it is, is up for debate. A facility is a more obvious target than a single hard disk at someone’s home. It’s a consideration for sure, but my reasons for wanting everything back at Molinare was to achieve greater control and consistency in everyone’s experience of remote working. Engineering support is also far more practical with media and equipment in one place and next to impossible without physically entering someone’s home.” 

Rather than rely on one tool, Woolfson engaged a combination of solutions including HP’s Remote Graphics Software (RGS), Teradici for access to Media Composer and Sohonet ClearView Flex as well as the facility’s own newly deployed client streaming platform.

“What we like is to have lots of options for different use cases and different environments,”

“What we like is to have lots of options for different use cases and different environments,” Woolfson says. “Often there are compromises in bandwidth capacity at the receiving end but having a wider inventory also enables us to market and package remote solutions tailored for each client.”

Underpinning them all is the Sohonet network. “Our VPN is managed by Sohonet. Our firewall services are delivered through Sohonet. I’ve worked with them for many years and I know Sohonet technology is first class.”

“ClearView Flex itself is a fantastic product,” he says. “The quality of stream is excellent and viewable on Apple TV and mobile devices and laptops. It’s fair to say that if you’re making very specific and nuanced decisions about colour or you’re trying to identify a particular artefact then anything other than a professionally calibrated 4K display may not be suitable. 

“ClearView Flex itself is a fantastic product,”

“We’ve attached ClearView Flex to our grading and online suites principally for reviews and used it to post a variety of high-profile projects for all the streaming giants during the pandemic.”

From lockdown last March through to today, Molinare never closed its doors entirely. Clients could attend craft sessions with strict health protocols in place.

“We monitored the Co2 in each room which gives a good indication of the quality of air and air flow,” Woolfson says.  “Thanks to social distancing and the other health measures we put in place, we’ve not had a single outbreak as a result of being in the office. Now, as lockdown rules are lifted, we’ll begin to see more staff and more clients return to the suites.” 

 

Inevitably as a result, the role of remote will diminish a little. He says, “Many people are desperate to get back into the office. On a bigger project in particular it is much more effective to be able to discuss issues and share ideas with various creatives by simply going from cutting room to online to grade or audio mix within the same building. 

“we will keep all our remote solutions in place to offer to our customers”

“That said, we will keep all our remote solutions in place to offer to our customers. Going forward, if a client needs six cutting rooms – four might be in the building and two might be remote. It’s a great advantage for everyone. The client has the flexibility to decide how they want to set up, and it allows us to sell more edit facilities. While accepting that remote or even hybrid won’t be right for every job, we are no longer constrained by physical capacity. I think it offers a real opportunity for all round.

 

Why Streamers Should Be Thinking About the Metaverse

NAB Amplify

Turns out the launch of new streaming services wasn’t the hard part. Having exceeded targets for attracting subscribers, propelled by pandemic lockdowns, the film and TV content providers must contend with keeping them.

https://amplify.nabshow.com/articles/why-streamers-should-be-thinking-about-the-metaverse/

It’s no easy task, with a new survey from Deloitte charting the rate of churn at 37%. While media giants like Hulu, HBO Max, Peacock, CBS All Access can deploy strategies to keep this in check, an existential threat is looming which may not be in their control.

Deloitte’s latest Digital Media Trends survey reveals a world being reshaped by the COVID-19 pandemic and generational trends.

From October 2020 to February 2021, the churn rate for streaming video services was 37% and the reasons are many. Cost not content is now the most pressing issue.

“Media companies should be prepared to evolve and take a diversified approach, starting with gaming. They should spend time and resources getting to know the fluid and multifaceted entertainment habits of Gen Z and designing experiences to attract them.”

— Deloitte Digital media trends, 15th edition

Nearly half of respondents to Deloitte’s survey said low price was the most important factor in deciding to subscribe to a new paid streaming video service. This represents a significantly greater number than those who listed content as their main consideration.

Consumers are facing growing pressure to manage and pay for so many entertainment services, the report says. As they chase niche content and trending entertainment, people are showing strong interest in ad-supported options that subsidize or remove subscription costs.

But this is not universal. 40% of respondents said they’d prefer to pay $12 a month for a service with no ads versus 39% preferring a free service with 12 minutes of ads an hour. The desire for no ads was even higher for younger generations.

At the same time, subscription fatigue and sub-optimal user experiences are creating friction, which is causing some audiences to jump to competitors or other forms of entertainment. COVID-19 has further impacted streamers’ ability to deliver new content, a factor in Netflix’s less than expected new subscriber tally for the last quarter.

All of this is driving subscriber churn and posing challenges for media companies vying to retain audiences.

“Providers understand that keeping audiences around after they’ve binged the latest hits may require more than just good content,” Deloitte conclude. “And given what they spend on marketing, advertising, discounts, free trials, and new content to acquire subscribers, it may make more sense for providers to retain subscribers at a lower price than lose them, at least right now.”

But this may not be enough in the long term. There is evidence that video streaming services are not as enticing to younger people who prefer to get their entertainment kicks from gaming, music streaming and social media.

Generation Z Could Reshape the Entertainment Landscape

Video games use has been amplified during the pandemic. Deloitte found that 87% of Gen Z, 83% of Millennials, and 79% of Gen X said they play video games at least weekly. More than half of this group said that video games have taken away time from other entertainment activities. When they aren’t playing video games — and even when they are — Gen Z is streaming music. One study showed that half of young adults ages 18 to 29 are streaming music every day.

It seems that teens to 30-year-olds are becoming less engaged with more traditional video formats. They have grown up with social media, instant messaging, video games, and live-streaming influencers. In fact, suggests Deloitte, Gen Z could be viewed as early adopters who are influencing the behaviors of Millennials and Generation X — and possibly younger generations that follow them. This begs the question: Are M&E companies prepared for a future that could be shaped by Generation Z?

The myriad alternative options to streaming box sets and feature length movies are “dividing and fragmenting the market considerably” warns Deloitte.

“Media companies should be prepared to evolve and take a diversified approach, starting with gaming. They should spend time and resources getting to know the fluid and multifaceted entertainment habits of Gen Z and designing experiences to attract them.”

What does that mean? Deloitte Vice Chairman and report co-author Kevin Westcott elaborates, “The services most likely to thrive in the months and years ahead aggregate a lot of entertainment, not just their own, and offer different models to different kinds of subscribers. I think that’s the direction we’re going to go.”

It may not be Disney, Warner Bros or even Netflix which is best positioned to compete. Rather it is the crossover of film and TV with gaming, social and other formats forged by companies such as Amazon, Facebook and Google which may have longer term traction.

“The Metaverse being built by companies such as Epic Games, Facebook’s Oculus and Roblox (and Alphabet, Apple and Microsoft) will almost certainly be where Gen Z and its successors spend more of their time,” predicts NextTV analyst David Bloom. That Metaverse in the making surely will have places to jointly and virtually watch long-form and episodic video programming. But it’s hard to see Hollywood studios being the center of that looming virtual universe.

 

 

Controlling Elemental Forces in Shadow and Bone

 RED Digital Camera

The epic fantasy series Shadow and Bone takes us into the Kingdom of Ravka, a war-torn land where a young cartographer discovers she has extraordinary powers that could be the key to setting her country free. An adaptation of Leigh Bardugo's worldwide bestselling Grishaverse novels, the series joins titles like The Witcher and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (both shot on the RED MONSTRO sensor) on Netflix.

https://www.red.com/news/shadow-and-bone

The latter show’s pilot was directed by Lee Toland Krieger and lensed by David Lanzenberg. They reteamed at the request of showrunner Eric Heisserer to template the creative palette for episodes 1 and 2 of Shadow and Bone.

With the Kingdom of Ravka divided by a mysterious wall of darkness, building the world of Shadow and Bone would be the principal task for the filmmakers. “The aim was to create a realm that buys into the distinct Tsarist Russia look and steampunk tone of the novels yet steer away from bright, poppy saturated imagery,” Lanzenberg relates. “Lee felt very strongly about using subdued and muted colors of the kind that resonated with films like Dunkirk.”

Indeed, there are large scale army camps in Shadow and Bone that recall the soldiers on the beach in Christopher Nolan’s film. Other inspirations for Lanzenberg came from the golden period of 1970’s American cinema and films like Heaven’s Gate and McCabe & Mrs. Miller, both lensed by Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC.

“Lee is very aware of what a specific lens and camera combination can bring to bear on telling a story,” the cinematographer says. “With the combination of our desired lensing and 4K resolution, we felt that the MONSTRO sensor was the way to go to achieve our look and tone for the show.”

The DP and director have worked with RED since the feature The Age of Adaline (shot on a RED DRAGON). They used the MONSTRO sensor with a set of anamorphic lenses for the bold aesthetics of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.

“The glass we used for Sabrina was detuned and distorted and looked as if the image was melting like a painting by Francis Bacon,” Lanzenberg describes. “The effect was used at specific weird and magical times in the story to give the viewer almost no context as to where the characters were. For Shadow and Bone, Lee and I wanted to shoot anamorphic again on the DXL2 with a RED MONSTRO sensor, but this story didn’t need to be as extreme. This time we wanted to feel more of the scope of the locations. There was no need to defocus so much.”

Lanzenberg selected Panavision B Series anamorphics along with a 55mm Macro. “We were able to lend the show a very classical feel and impart a lot of texture because of the way the MONSTRO captures the lens,” he says.

Lanzenberg recorded the full frame 8K sensor knowing that the anamorphic squeeze would capture 6K. Visual effects, led by Ted Rae, were able to use that overhead to deliver a 4K master to Netflix.

Principal photography took place at the Mafilm Studio complex in Fót on the outskirts of Budapest. Before travelling to Hungary, Lanzenberg created the show’s look with colorist Shane Harris of Picture Shop.

“I worked with the production designer (Jonathan McKinstry, episode 1 and 2) and costume designer (Wendy Partridge) to hone and tweak the colorimetry,” he explains. “I like to take stills of fabric swatches or photograph aspects of the production design to see how they look under different lighting conditions and to keep within Lee’s references. Then, I share that with the colorist to evolve the LUT.

“For Shadow and Bone, we kept some warmish, coral tones while the shadows have a hint of blue in them. Additionally, the highlights are protected and the shadows aren’t deep to suggest that there’s always life in the darkness.”

He adds, “I think of the RED sensor in the way I would select film stock. What I really like about RED is the control I feel that I have over the final image from the show’s design through photography and into post.”

In keeping with the pseudo-Royal and 19th century period of the story, Krieger and Lanzenberg kept the camera movement classically motivated by the action.

“When we needed to create some tension, I’d bring out the handheld but sparingly,” notes Lanzenberg. “Composition and motivation were something we tried to keep in check. Although we had three cameras, for medium shots and closeups we tended to keep to one camera to aid the artists’ performances first and foremost and because I find a focus on single camera benefits lighting.”

Lanzenberg also made it a point to communicate his thoughts on every aspect of production to co-DPs Owen McPolin and Aaron Morton who lensed the subsequent six episodes with the same camera package.

“From the beginning they had access to our dailies to understand how to assimilate the look,” he says. “I think it’s very important for all crew – and particularly my peers – to be on the same page and deeply involved on a show such as this. It means sharing what went right, the reasons for craft decisions, and any struggles we had in order to make the whole show better.”

Is Streaming a Safe Business Bet?

NAB Amplify

As the media and entertainment industry pivots to streaming, questions are being raised about the sustainability of business models weighted with huge cost and low margin.

https://amplify.nabshow.com/articles/is-streaming-a-safe-business-bet/

Netflix has spent $17.3 billion on programming over ten years — 45% of all content spending since 2010, according to JustWatch. It spent two-and-a-half times more than next nearest competitor Amazon Prime Video last year.

Another report by BMO Capital Markets predicts Netflix will have spent $26 billion by 2028.

Yet, according to Forbes, “Netflix One Question: Is It Losing Money Or Making Money?,” Netflix reckons it needs four years on average to begin to make a 90% return on content. It made a net profit in 2019 of nearly $2 billion but its content costs remain astronomic.

“While it needs to rein in content spending in the long-run to boost cash flows, this could prove tricky, as subscriber growth could slow (or even decline) if it doesn’t keep updating its library at the same pace, given the competition in the streaming space,” Forbes warns.

So, it has to keep spending just to stand still. Meanwhile Disney spent about $1 billion on original programming for Disney+ in 2020. HBO Max reportedly invested $2 billion and Apple TV+ had a $6 billion content bill in its first year.

Is this sustainable?

The global television industry is enjoying an unprecedented boom, with producers across all genres — from high-end drama to quick-hit reality TV formats — benefiting from the truckloads of cash global streamers are pumping into the business.

According to one sales executive at French-based TV studio Banijay, “We’re working with everyone, from [AMC Networks-owned streamers] Acorn TV and Sundance Now to the likes of Hulu and Peacock…. We’ve also seen a huge appetite for content on traditional linear TV in the last 12 months, driven in part by the pandemic lockdown, and the AVOD business is exploding.”

But everyone is wondering how long this will last? As sure as eggs is eggs bust will follow boom.

In a new report, “U.S. Media: Is Streaming a Good Business?,” the analyst firm MoffettNathanson advised that while investment in new content is skyrocketing, there is no guarantee revenues and profit will follow.

The analyst argues that most U.S. television groups are moving away from the “high-margin/low-capital model” of pay TV toward a streaming model that offers, at least initially, “low to non-existent margins with high capital intensity.”

In other words, domestic streaming isn’t all that much different in terms of profit margins from low-end basic cable and premium pay networks.

What makes a difference is international scope — something Netflix has focused on for several years by building up content catalogues and local production hubs in places like Korea, Spain, Brazil and India. It heeded its own data suggesting that the North American market was likely saturated and that growth had to come from overseas.

“Netflix’s greatest asset — and the likely Achilles’ heel of many of their competitors — is indeed their international footprint, which should drive incremental profit and ROIC into the future,” writes analyst Michael Nathanson. “Absent a truly global ambition and subscriber base, we struggle to see how many of these nascent SVOD/AVOD services will profitably scale.”

 

Interview: Roy C Anthony, DNEG

IBC

With a roving brief to explore the nexus of technology and art, Roy C Anthony is revelling in his new role as global head of research at DNEG. 

https://www.ibc.org/interview-roy-c-anthony-dneg/7485.article

“I’ve always seen technology and art as interdependent,” says Roy C Anthony. “One inspires the other, which unlocks creative potential which inspires further innovation. It’s a virtuous circle.” 

Anthony’s primary focus is on emerging technologies, driving innovation within the domains of real-time technology and the use of artificial intelligence to enhance the artist experience across visual effects and animation. He holds patents in stereoscopy, VR /AR display systems and calibration. 

His previous job at Ventuz Technology saw him working on real-time graphics in broadcast and live events, such as in-camera AR and camera tracking on virtual sets. Prior to that he headed up the research and innovation team at projection systems vendor Christie Digital “working on tech solutions that could be reframed or presented in a different way”, he says, “like a subversive marketing group”. 

His team collaborated with directors and high frame rate (HFR) pioneers Douglas Trumbull, Ang Lee and James Cameron and created some seminal research work around the perception of HFR from an audience perspective. 

Despite these efforts, high frame rates have yet to capture the cinema-goers’ imagination.  

“High frame rates are just another tool in the tool box along with stereo 3D and wide colour gamut for content creators,” he insists. “If cinematographers only had a 50mm lens then whole styles of shot simply wouldn’t exist. Technology is changing all the time and HFR’s time will come.” 

Gaming influence 
Anthony grew up in the late 1970s with video games as much an influence as cinema. The narrative experience of the Gen Z/millennial generation is being shaped as much by gaming and 3D experiences in VR as by stories told linearly on a giant 2D screen.  

“Storytelling in computer games doesn’t have a cadence locked to a specific frame rate,” he says. “There is no 24fps high motion blur narrative experience for The Last of Us Part II [a single player PS4 game set in post-apocalyptic America released last year]. It is presented as fast as it needs to be in order to immerse you in the story.” 

He says storytellers are getting used to using other mediums like gaming and VR to communicate their ideas. “Consumers have the opportunity in some cases to become the cinematographer and move around and create their own perspective and their own experience.  

“It’s also a challenge for content creators. How do you merge a directed experience inside of an environment where people are able to move? Game designers are doing it all the time with subtle visual cues to try to pull your focus towards an area and then reward you when you start going in the correct direction. There are ways of integrating the user inside of an environment in a meaningful way. There are so many ways to hack our wetware [brain] and integrate us into story environments that don’t exist in traditional presentation.” 

Cloud community collaboration 
In terms of production, an area of focus for Anthony is around cloud and how the opportunity to stream content securely from location to location offers producers a more integrated pipeline. 

“It’s one where more individuals can contribute at lower cost to the final solution,” he says. “You don’t necessarily have to be on location to see dailies, you can have them streamed to where you are. The idea of having to ship a hard drive with someone sitting on a plane seat can be consigned to history.”  

DNEG is a great example of a company with a number of facilities around the world and contributors for projects who could be based anywhere. 

“We now have an opportunity to have our lighting expert in Mumbai collaborate live with colleagues who are on a virtual set in Vancouver.  A virtual art department can create a previz with a customer who can participate in that remotely through their mobile device,” he enthuses.  

“These kinds of technologies are enabling a lot more fusion and shrinking the size of the global studio to more of a community-oriented environment where we’re more like a little city together even while we are distributed globally.” 

AI as production assistant 
Another emerging technology showing genuine promise for both the creative process and the bottom line is artificial intelligence. Anthony is bullish on its prospects at the heart of production. 

“There are a lot of things that AI offers that enhances the artist experience. When we think about AI as an assistive directed technology it is providing you with an opportunity to express your creativity with less friction.  

“Let’s say you want to create a matte painting of an epic backdrop and have a bunch of samples that you need to integrate into Photoshop. You can do that today with tools that allow you to take disparate inputs and output a harmonised composition. It might not be your end point but it will get you to a higher level starting point extremely rapidly.” 

He points to research from the University of Toronto, near where he lives, where audio as an input is being used to drive character animation for multiple languages. 

“The goal is not to replace the animator but to get it to the point where the animator can bring it to the next level,” he argues. “AI has a lot of potential to help express our creative potential by simplifying a lot of frustrating tasks and accelerating work and enabling artists to get that aha! moment as quickly as possible.” 

The biggest buzzwords in film and TV production just now are virtual production. DNEG itself has a new joint venture with Dimension, which provides custom-built LED stages and is finalising plans for permanent virtual production stages in the UK and North America.  

The studio also recently unveiled the Polymotion Stage with Nikon and MRMC. This mobile multi-solution studio is capable of capturing high-quality volumetric video, image and avatar creation at up to 4K with integrated motion capture. 

“Virtual production is not just the on-set experience with an LED volume,” he says. “It is a whole continuum of technologies and while top of the range LED volumes are expensive, quite a few other virtual production technologies are democratised.” 

Virtual production also incorporates previz, much of which is now performed in VR or it could be using an iPad as a virtual camera for plotting and planning. While this concertinas the traditionally order of filmmaking, Anthony doesn’t think it spells the end of post. 

“I still think there’s going to be post VFX just as VFX didn’t eliminate SFX,” he says. “But planning for an LED volume shoot definitely has to be more front loaded. Even on traditional shoots the idea of doing detailed planning ahead of time was important to get the shot you want to achieve. Being able to put so much effort into pre-viz and planning helps you make a better film technically.” 

Instead of costly guesswork on set to be fixed in post, virtual productions necessitate switching to a ‘fix it in prep’ approach in which post resources are reallocated to the pre-production phase.  

“Before we had massive chroma key greenscreen effects for replacing entire environments, production was done for decades by dressing a set and putting actors in it. Virtual production is really no different. It is just providing an opportunity for VFX to contribute to that traditional workflow.” 

 

Evolution of The Network

 InBroadcast

As online video consumption reaches new peaks, the industry is adopting new and varied Content Delivery Network strategies.

https://www.inbroadcast.com/ezines/evolution-of-the-network

The global CDN market is worth US$14 billion according to Deloitte, up more than 25% from US$11 billion in 2019. The market is set to more than double to $30 billion by 2025. Live video streaming and the streaming video games may spur further growth. The consulting firm points to how media companies are working out their CDN strategies, including whether they should build their own CDNs. “Only a few major media companies will have the capital to do so,” Deloitte reckons. “The rest will probably rent capacity from CDN providers who, in turn, will pay telecoms to run traffic on their networks.”

CDN technology is evolving rapidly with a particular focus on improving scaling, cost-efficiency, and the Quality of Experience for viewers. A key development in the industry pinpointed by Jim Brickmeier, CPO/CMO at Velocix, is the move towards infrastructure agnostic, cloud-native CDN architectures. These allow the optimum solution balance, across cloud and on-premises platforms, to suit the individual requirements of video service providers. 

“For instance, some operators may prioritise the elastic scaling and rapid service launch capabilities of cloud-based CDNs, whereas others place a higher premium on seeking the lowest cost per bit delivered from an on-premise solution,” says Brickmeier. “In many cases, a hybrid approach across cloud and on-premises infrastructure can provide the right mix of capabilities.”

“To bolster the Quality of Experience, there has also been renewed interest in managed services for licensed CDNs as video service operators seek to accelerate their transition to new cloud and hybrid architectures. In addition to assisting clients migrate to newer models, the managed services team can also assist with advanced video network monitoring that reduces incident response times, proactively detects traffic bottlenecks, and strengthens capacity planning.”

At a time when the popularity of streaming services has never been higher, content security needs to be a top priority. Credential sharing is endemic, with 36% of UK consumers admitting to sharing their login details for streaming services with others, according to Limelight Networks’ state of online survey 2020. 

“Streaming providers have to work harder to ensure traffic is passing through legitimate channels,” says Steve Miller-Jones, VP Strategy, Industry & Partnership, Limelight. “However, how they respond needs to be guided by their priorities.”

He says identifying credential sharing and problem accounts will take closer collaboration between streaming providers and CDNs. Tracking the activity of individual accounts is important for understanding user behaviour but detecting credential abuse and blocking access can be very complex. Live events in particular are subject to this attack vector.

“A CDN partner can play a crucial role here - keeping a detailed log of every content request for a given stream or piece of content,” says Miller-Jones. “This data is then shared with the streaming service provider, letting them compile a blacklist of compromised accounts that can then be blocked from accessing future content. CDN providers are consistently looking at ways to make the process faster and more efficient. Indeed, the use of AI to rapidly detect account abuse may be a source of future innovation.”

“As streaming has overtaken broadcast viewing, traffic is shifting away from global CDN providers,” says Xavier Leclercq, VP Business Development at Broadpeak. “Several streaming giants, from Netflix to TikTok, have built their own CDNs to better control consumer experiences.

“The approach - whether global or focused on where global CDNs are unable to reach - is made possible by CDN selection tools, such as Broadpeak’s umbrellaCDN, which distributes requests across CDNs. This is how a portion of HBO’s traffic is delivered today using Broadpeak HBO caches, deployed inside various ISP networks in Central America.” 

2021 continues to see a developing trend, with CDNs initially built by the ISP for their own video services. These CDNs are being opened to content providers like Disney under new wholesale agreements.

Leclercq says, “whether new CDNs are deployed by content providers or wholesaled by the ISP, being inside ISP networks provides a crucial advantage - it positions content closest to the consumer, typically allowing low-latency and congestion-free consumption.”

As online video consumption reaches new peaks, new challenges are arising for industry newcomers and veterans alike. Amid a global pandemic, in a highly competitive market, and in an age where streaming failures make headlines, Verizon Media say QoE has never been more critical for content publishers. 

“As pressure on networks intensifies, customers expect CDNs to support new video formats, have the ability to achieve greater scalability and optimize quality regardless of demand,” says Muhammad Rehman, VP, Product Management, Delivery, Security & Edge Compute. “At Verizon Media, our CDN is optimized for Video delivery while maintaining best in class QoE regardless of demands. We are working with our customers to move key video workflow capabilities such as video ingestion, video encoding and ad-insertion closer to where users physically are by utilizing a CDN Edge Compute platform.”

He adds, “Computing at the CDN Edge has the potential to meet the challenges of a network tasked with delivering more data at higher quality to end-users with minimal latency, guaranteeing quality and reliable experiences for broadcasters looking to reinvent the viewing experience.”

To ensure a consistent high-quality video experience, an increasing number of broadcasters are turning to multi-CDN strategies, deploying several CDNs in their video delivery workflow.

Choosing a multi CDN strategy for the delivery of streaming TV services  is the best way to ensure the highest quality for end users, offload peak traffic, enable redundancy, increase reach and reduce cost. Today a multi CDN strategy is an integral part of any streaming service.

“Once the decision is made to use more than one CDN for the delivery of your content, the question that needs answering is: how do you get a unified view of the end user experience when data is being delivered from multiple sources to a variety of clients, independent of CDN and client?” poses Edgeware.

Besides the difficulty of automatically gathering delivery statistics from the different CDNs within your eco-system, there is also the challenge of collecting information from the clients. One way to monitor the user experience is to integrate supervision inside the client. However, the client landscape is fragmented and holds a complex mix of device types, models and variations. This makes achieving 100% coverage of devices difficult - and expensive.

In response to these challenges, Edgeware has developed the StreamPilot delivery control platform. StreamPilot inserts itself into the control plane between client and CDN for each session and orchestrates the delivery on a per-segment basis, totally independent of the delivering CDN. By sitting in this critical patch between the CDN and the client, StreamPilot collects session data and in real-time collects data related to the session, what bitrates are used, what is available and information on location and ISP. As 5G rolls out there are strong arguments that legacy CDNs with fixed PoPs are not best suited to maximising the technology’s high network capacity, ultra-low latency and extreme reliability. Telco operators are particularly keen on monetizing 5G and are looking to a virtualized CDN platform based on web scale technology and positioned closer to the edge of network.

Varnish Edge Cloud is a virtualized CDN and edge caching solution delivered in the cloud. It is highly scalable caching software that runs on commodity hardware, as virtualized instances or on bare metal within the MEC (multi-access edge computing) environment.

The 100TB cache capacity of Varnish Edge Cloud nodes can scale on demand, whether deployed at the network edge in virtualized PoPs, in aggregate data centres or between 5G base stations.

Varnish provide the software components and services to help telcos build a 5G CDN in a 5G network or inside of the traditional 4G LTE network. If customers are not comfortable with integrating the technology themselves, or CDN operation is not a core part of their strategy, its managed services team can remotely manage it on their behalf.

Transforming their networks into edge cloud platforms offers telcos a lot of opportunity for monetization and for innovation,” Varnish state. “Why would they leave money on the table for someone else?” 

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Zero Friction & The True Promise of IP

 copy written for TAG published at InBroadcast

Media organisations can now capitalise on the groundwork laid by IP with the operational and business agility of zero friction, says TAG Video Systems…

https://www.inbroadcast.com/ezines/zero-friction-the-true-promise-of-ip

The transition to IP has been widely and rightly heralded as a game-changer for the broadcast industry. The technical work for which SMPTE and organisations including the VSF, EBU and AMWA have been awarded a Technical Emmy is well deserved. 

But we have not reached the end game. In fact, the operational changes that IP workflows offer media companies have barely begun. IP has been accepted as a technical overhaul of the solid but inflexible infrastructure of SDI but what it has actually done is flipped on its head the whole concept of workflow. When media organisations have moved systems to software and solutions can be deployed in the cloud or on common of the shelf (COTS) hardware it can start to introduce the operational flexibility that will pay dividends.

Today, there is too much friction impeding businesses from realising the promise of IP. TAG Video Systems believe there is a way out of the impasse.

“With IP, broadcasters should be able to do anything they want,” says Paul Briscoe, TAG’s Chief Architect. “Rather than pushing work linearly from source to consumption, we can build dynamic systems to perform one function one day and a different or multiple functions the next. IP is no longer just a technology revolution. The industry is now at a turning point where it can capitalise on the workflow revolution.”

How did we get here?
Prior to IP, the industry’s workflows were largely unchanged since the 1950s. Content moved from acquisition to production and onward to distribution.  Legacy systems built on SDI began to hinder systems installation and business growth. Trying to change a facility’s purpose involved physical uplift and fixing of patch panels. The versatility needed to be a successful studio business responsive to demand was sorely lacking.

The primary broadcast applications of live production, playout, delivery and OTT tended not to be housed in the same facility. They were likely to be operated by different teams. A multiviewer operated by live production couldn’t be operated by someone in QC or delivery. Siloed black boxes performed siloed functions within siloed divisions.

IP liberates this entire approach. The premise of ST 2110 was to consign the proprietary nature of black box development to history. It replaced arcane point to point signal transport with an entirely new essence-based mechanism to frees the media business from the chains of hardware.

This has the additional benefit of providing a common ‘backbone’ for the facility. Instead of having to worry about running the correct type of cable and signal to various locations, engineering personnel can easily configure and control network switches and routers remotely, allowing them to work from wherever they are.

Suddenly, any format and any combination of audio, video and metadata can flow bidirectionally across a facility or between facilities using the same protocols, the same switchers, the same common IT architectures.

Complete operational agility
Suddenly, it is possible for a product such as a multiviewer to serve the needs of any and all broadcast applications. It follows that it should also be possible to manage the product’s licences so that it is optimised at all times. The client can pick and choose where it is used, when it is used, and so maximise asset utilisation.

TAG describes this ability to move quickly from application to application as ‘zero friction’. The concept forms the backbone of its 100 per cent software based integrated IP Multiviewer, Probing and Monitoring solution.

“Bringing everything to a single point in terms of monitoring and multiviewing has several advantages beyond operational flexibility,” explains Kevin Joyce, Chief Commercial Officer, TAG Video Systems. “You have one instance of software which means you are distributing your training and support costs across the entire application base of the product. You have licensing that offers the flexibility of deploying on physical premises or in the cloud. You can move your licences around from instance to instance as demand requires. In addition, to which, all formats can be accommodated whether compressed or uncompressed. This is a Swiss Army Knife for you to grab the tool you need.”

Zero friction business model
Another step is needed for this concept to be truly zero friction.  Vendors, including TAG, would previously charge one price for licences that worked with compressed media and a premium for licences that worked uncompressed.

“If we really want to enable our clients to work in a zero friction world we felt we needed to allow them to use our product for the same price in either capex or opex models, regardless of the application,” says Joyce. 

Imagine an opex model where the broadcaster only pays for the time its products are in use. As a production facility in London comes offline, for example, its product licences can be switched off or reassigned to its OTT or playout division anywhere around the world without incurring any penalty for doing so.

“Asset utilisation is notoriously low in the broadcast industry,” Briscoe says. “It’s astonishing when you think about it that 60-70 per cent of the time an asset is sitting in a rack unused.” The industry talks about sweating its assets, to make the most of the hefty capital outlay and an eventual return on investment. It’s an extremely expensive and highly inefficient model, especially when there is an alternative at hand.

TAG says that a zero friction business model allows for product deployment wherever and whenever it is required, in turn rocketing asset utilisation up to 80 and 90 per cent.

“This prepares media organisations for flexibility of production at scale,” Briscoe says. “Rather than a news studio being used for two hours a day before going dark, or dedicating another facility solely to production of the network’s soap, it is far more efficient to be able to combine resources. For example, having one control room serve many studios, or multiple control rooms serving a suite of studios and a remote production. The idea is to use resources when they are otherwise dark and you get the mileage out of them.”

Attaining production agility is also driving changes in playout. Here, the decades old model dictated by dedicated infrastructure severely limited the ability of a broadcaster to launch new channels. Channel launches were expensive undertakings that took months if not years to create. 

Today, broadcasters can launch new channels to accommodate spikes in viewing - and open monetisation opportunities - around one-off events (a national election, an Olympics), literally at the press of a few buttons. Pop-up channels are not economically viable if you have to engineer one from racks of hardware. An all-IP system, however, allows you to configure software and services for a new channel within hours if not minutes with keyboard commands.

That is the model zero friction fits into.

Laying the groundwork
TAG isn’t slow to the IP party. It read the runes fifteen years ago and began to transition its product line, research and development into IP. 

“This experience has given us some insight into how to deploy not just multifunctional technology and to overlay an operational agility model and then overlay a zero friction business model,” says Joyce. “We believe that this will be the only way the media industry will acquire and use technology in the future. You must have this capability in order to yield a far greater return on asset utilization.”

There’s one last important message. TAG say they are not going to stand still. ‘Zero friction’ is not a one-off marketing exercise but a philosophy that informs its whole business.

“With IP accelerating our plan is to introduce more product categories for the M&E business,” says Joyce. “Regardless of the technology you buy from us we will keep track of it and manage it for you so that you can use your zero friction TAG assets for any application we develop in the future. Our hope too is that this will push the industry to think about new business models for the industry.”

Camera makers emphasize IP, 4K capabilities

p9 TV Tech

The dramatic reductions in live events and sports have had a commensurate impact on equipment buying for mobile production.   The pandemic has also given the industry reason to re-evaluate workflows and production practices, especially the move to remote production over IP.  

https://issuu.com/futurepublishing/docs/tvt460.digital_april_2021?fr=sY2ZjNTMxMDczNTA

“The cancellation or delay of major sporting events, as well as music and many other productions, certainly had an impact on our customers' business,” says Klaus Weber, Principal Camera Solutions & Technology. “OB, in particular, had to organize their business around the reduced number of events, so investing in new cameras was often not a high priority.  

However, the pandemic accelerated the move towards investing in distributed infrastructures and workflows. Weber adds, “IP cameras enable optimized integration in remote productions, which is ideal in the current climate.”  

Manufacturers are understandably reluctant to admit any downturn in sales, so let’s take their reports at face value. 

“The pandemic hasn't really affected Blackmagic Design camera sales, and the demand across our range has actually increased,” says Craig Heffernan, the firm’s Technical Sales Director EMEA.  

JVC says any reduction in demand for traditional live event production has been off-set by an increase in smaller or lower tier event streaming requirements.  

“Of course, the budgets for such production setups are relatively limited compared with larger OB-type events,” says John Kelly, GM for JVC, EMEA. “Typically using 2-4 cameras, and with content delivery over IP rather than traditional over-the-air, this has allowed sports clubs to retain an income stream and engage not only with their normal core audience but also expanding to those who may not be able to attend in person.” 

Pent-up demand 

With most large capital expenditures reduced or postponed, purchases of studio cameras by broadcasters have slowed. Hitachi suggests there’s a lot of pent-up project planning and expects to see a surge of buying as the health situation improves.  

“While sales to M&E customers have been delayed, uptake of broadcast-class cameras in other markets has held strong,” notes John J. Humphrey, VP Business Development at Hitachi America. “For example, the need to adopt or improve online streaming production has led many educational institutions and houses of worship to upgrade kit. These customers also benefit from the advantages of system cameras for their multi-camera live events.” 

Sony says the impact of its camera sales for non-scripted media and news was also low as consumer demand for news skyrocketed.  “We also saw higher demand for smaller, streaming-capable palm-type cameras for streaming live events in the corporate and private sector,” remarks Hiroshi Kajita, Head of Media Solutions, Sony Professional Solutions Europe. The impact on our innovation has been limited as our roadmaps reflect customer priorities - new HFR capabilities as well as IP-based and distributed workflow options were brought in during the pandemic.” 

The absence of the usual trade show cycle is not thought to have inhibited R&D but it’s equally apparent that there have been fewer significant innovations introduced in this period. That’s no bad thing. The lack of physical shows on the calendar has reduced the industry’s traditional pressure to announce new products, often before they’re ready to ship. 

“’Virtual’ shows have been limited in their ability overall but have been even less effective for product categories such as cameras where ‘seeing is believing,’” says Humphrey.  “The ability to try cameras in person is a critical part of customers’ buying process. We eagerly look forward to the return of traditional trade shows, hopefully in the fall.” 

By far the bigger impact has been on the customer engagement side.  “We’ve missed the opportunity to interact with customers and partners on a wide scale,” agrees Kajita.  

HD and UHD 

The continuing move toward 4K production while not yet abandoning HD is the other main trend. This includes requirements for for HDR and Wide Color Gamut productions in 1080p as well as UHD.  

“Shifting from a ‘nice to have’ to a prerequisite for quality broadcasts, the ability to shoot in 1080P and 4K are the impetus behind new production formats,” says Michael Bergeron, Sr. Product Manager, Live Production Systems, Panasonic. “From a broadcast perspective, the ability to purchase an affordable camera today that can easily be upgraded to 4k in the future is allowing studios to enhance their workflows and offer more productions – in 4K and HDR – while having a camera that meets their immediate needs and can evolve with them. Similarly, the ability to support a cinema workflow with studio camera technology allows for multi-camera productions by using the lenses of broadcast cameras and undergoing the same post-process for cinema production.” 

Perhaps that’s why Sony chooses to flag the newest camera in its cine range for this article rather than a traditional broadcast imager. The FX3 “demonstrates the goal for Sony to create tools for content creators in all budgets and size requirements,” it says. The $4000 model is comparable to BMD’s PCC range and can record 4K at 120fps (or HD 240fps) for documentary work. 

There is increasing demand for virtual studios with many popping up at existing TV facilities such as Dock10 which services UK broadcasters. Studio cameras are evolving to meet demands for greater automation and integration with robotic systems and tracking systems to incorporate AR and 3D graphics.  

“While these are all generally supported by IP connectivity, IP is not is driving studio camera upgrades yet, since these cameras are designed to be run by in-person operators,” says Bergeron. “That said, IP is having a much bigger impact in the next generation of cameras as IP infrastructures are becoming more widespread and bring more workflow options.” 

 

New product roundup 

Arguably the most significant debut in this market is from ARRI. It’s not a name associated with live but it has re-designed the Super 35 cine camera Amira for multi-camera broadcast. Arri has integrated the signal directly into a SMPTE 311M fiber transmission system and eliminated cabling, resulting in what it says is a “cleaner and more reliable” set-up for live productions. The system permits Sony RCP image parameter and iris control for ENG-style PL and B4 lenses including box lenses, EF lenses, and of course, prime and cine zoom lenses. An “even more flexible and advanced RCP operation” is offered via a Skaarhoj shading control which supports access to LUTs and setup files. 

Recent updates to JVC camcorders (GY-HC500/550 and GY-HC900) include Network Adaptive Bitrate, lower latency and SRT support for return video over IP. The company has also incorporated VITC (vertical interval time code) and LTC (longitudinal time code) functions with this latest update. Together with the implemented NTP (Network Time Protocol) function, these are ideal for synchronising multiple remote cameras during live event production and streaming. 

Blackmagic’s most recent hardware updates have arrived in its Pocket Cinema Camera range with the release of the 6K Pro. This allows you to connect the 6K Pro to an Blackmagic switcher (like the ATEM Mini) and control camera parameters as well as lens and tally light, as part of HDMI workflows for streaming and OTT.  “We want to take the technologies used in high-end broadcast cameras and replicate them into areas like live streaming, where we have seen the most demand,” explains Heffernan. 

Grass Valley’s developments reflect the increase in demand for remote productions.  Its LDX 100 camera is claimed as the only system camera to offer native IP connectivity, allowing for integration directly into IP infrastructures. 

“With products such as Creative Grading we enable highly customizable camera control panels with graphical representation of all setting parameters on a practically unlimited number of mobile display devices,” Weber explains. “We’ve also opened up new image control possibilities away from the control room. It enables improved decentralized productions and easier communication between operators involved in managing optimized image settings for the production.”     

Hitachi is promoting its CU-HD550 CCU (timed to be unveiled at 2020’s cancelled NAB Show). This can upscale natively-acquired HD video to 4K and outputs the result over 12G-SDI.  “While 4K adoption is growing, HD production continues to thrive, with many high-profile events being produced in 1080p60 with HDR,” comments Hitachi engineering manager, Emilio Aleman. “The new 4K output feature is for content creators who have some UHD production requirements but aren’t yet ready to invest in full 4K cameras and infrastructure, while the dual HDR/SDR workflow functionality helps producers optimally reach multiple generations of displays.”  

The UHK-X700 is the new flagship for Ikegami’s UNICAM XE 4K series. Launching this quarter, the model incorporates three 2/3-inch CMOS sensors with global shutters. HDR HLG is supported as well as options for BT.2020 and BT.709 colour spaces. 4K is available as a 12G-SDI feed directly from the camera head, allowing the UHK-X700 to be integrated into a wireless system.  High frame-rate shooting at up to 2x speed in 4K or 8K at HD is also possible via the base station. 

Panasonic’s most recent OB camera, AK-UC3300, contains an 11MP sensor for 4K capture and a 2x HD high-speed function and simultaneous HDR/SDR feature set. The new AK-HC3900 HD studio camera includes a 4K-CMOS sensor and, combined with a CCU and Remote Operation Panel, can construct a long-distance optical fibre transmission studio camera system. This camera includes a future upgrade option to support 4K at 50/60p, “making it a perfection option for broadcasting live events,” says Bergeron.