PBS Builds Permanent Bridge Between Producers and Editors with ClearView Flex

Copywritten for Sohonet

Many post-producers and broadcasters had their plans for remote editorial accelerated as a result of the pandemic, but very few had it within their wheelhouse all along.

https://www.sohonet.com/our-resources/blogs/pbs-builds-permanent-bridge-between-producers-and-editors-with-clearview-flex/

PBS the esteemed public broadcaster, and most prominent provider of educational TV programming to stations in the United States, had not only greenlit plans for a remote post operation by late 2019 but had decided to base its strategy on Sohonet’s ClearView Flex.

As part of a wider upgrade and redevelopment of its production hub in Alexandria, Virginia, PBS had taken the decision to collocate its postproduction resources at the production hub, away from the main headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.  

“This would physically separate our editors in the post facility from producers,” explains Brian M. Jones, senior director, Media Production Operations. 

“Our team was tasked with acquiring solutions that would aid in our effort to bridge that geographical gap with a reliable, fast and efficient workflow… something that wouldn’t disrupt the current working relationship between our producers and editors.”

He adds, “Our editors are technical as well as creative people who fully embrace any tech that can do the job better, but with the change, managing expectations of how this technology would aid editor-producer collaboration was in order. Our plan was to use ClearView Flex in-house/at headquarters to allow users to fully understand the new workflow before relocating our postproduction resources to Alexandria.” Then COVID-19 hit.

“What it did was force everyone’s hand,” Jones explains. “We didn’t know how long the shutdowns would last but with ClearView Flex we had a ready-made solution. It was an appliance that we had been in preparation to rollout toward the end of 2020 and, as it turned out, we ended up using it in production every day across multiple shifts at least six months earlier than anticipated.”

“We didn’t know how long the shutdowns would last but with ClearView Flex we had a ready-made solution.”

In the initial stages of the crisis PBS producers worked from home while its editors remained on-site. After six weeks, towards the end of March 2020, the editors were also able to work from home using ClearView Flex to play back content from the on-prem Avid Media Composers.

PBS distributes a wide array of educational, documentary, drama and public affairs programming from a variety of producers to its more than 330 member stations across the U.S. Shows include PBS Newshour, Antiques Roadshow, Finding Your Roots, Masterpiece Theater, Sesame Street and more. Before onward distribution, it must all pass rigorous quality control to adhere to PBS’ Technical Operation Specification.

“Some producers are more hands on than others, but they all work closely in teams and are using Sohonet ClearView Flex to do so,” Jones says. “It [COVID-19] has proven to be quite a beta test case for when the rest of the organization does move back into the HQ.”

Still today no one is working on premises at PBS HQ but even when a return to the office is allowed, the remote editing, packaging and QC workflow will remain in place. 

“It has worked really well from our point of view,” Jones says. “It gives our operations and creative teams flexibility in being able to collaborate as producer-editor pairs plus a work from home edit capability that we didn’t have prior to acquiring ClearView.”

 

Beautiful Nightmare: The Cinematography of “Them”

NAB

Horror drama series Them has the look of a 1950s movie, shot through the lens of a 1970s movie, with the technology of the 21st century.

https://amplify.nabshow.com/articles/beautiful-nightmare-the-cinematography-for-them/

Cinematographers Checco Varese, ASC and Xavier Grobet, ASC variously used spherical and anamorphic glass, LED video walls and shot color for black-and-white to create the unsettling ambience of racist paranoia in suburban Los Angeles.

Varese set the look for show creator Little Marvin and director Nelson Cragg. Eps were lensed by Varese and Grobet. They shot on Sony Venice and shared their experiences with Sony.

Varese dismisses the horror label for Them describing it as “a drama with an intrinsic fear factor embedded in it.” He says, “The fear doesn’t come from the usual suspect; it comes from what we don’t see. I painted with shadows in this project.”

Because Varese wanted to rely on optical and in-camera tricks, rather than visual effects, they tested a range of lenses, filters and attachments and shot parts of the show anamorphic and parts spherical. He framed with a 2:39 aspect ratio throughout to maintain a consistent anamorphic look.

After the third episode was shot anamorphic, Varese steered them to use Mini-Hawk lenses, spherical optical by design but with anamorphic-like bokeh.

“I wanted the anamorphic bokeh without the limitation of the minimum focus,” he say

Grobet adds that the first set of lenses chosen, Hawk anamorphic, “are very sturdy, but with close focus we had to bring in diopters, so it was challenging. When we switched to Mini-Hawk, which were spherical, it made it easier for speed and efficiency.”

Episode 8 of the ten-episode series was designed as a prequel to the story’s tale of present day horror. Little Marvin wanted to shoot in black and white, but Amazon weren’t sure.

Varese worked with wardrobe to tweak the colors on clothing, to pre-empt the possibility of black-and-white. He says, “For black-and-white your shadows have to be longer, because you don’t have color to tell the story. The fire in black-and-white is different from the fire in color. We made a color correction in color, and one in black-and-white and the studio said it definitely should be black-and-white. I didn’t steer them in any direction.”

The shoot took place in Santa Fe at a ranch with some existing structures that the production designer painted a stark ivory color. Because the barn was a very tight wood, Varese and his crew took some wood out to create slashes.

“We had a 20 x 40 bounce outside, and I asked the Rag Company to create a special bounce for me, like a checkerboard with hard silver alternating with soft silver. Then we added a plethora of HMIs in the ground to light this big bounce, so we could easily change the bounce with this mirror-like surface. Lastly, we added smoke inside.”

For Varese, the most difficult and rewarding scene he shot was in Episode 3, when one of the characters boards a bus late at night in LA on her way home. It seems so simple on paper but was apparently so sophisticated that the studio hired Suki Medencevic, ASC to shoot the rest of the episode so Varese could put his full concentration just into that scene.

The scene involves a vintage bus that the characters steps onto — only the “bus” was on a virtual stage with LED walls.

There is a myth that with LED walls you don’t need to use lights, Varese says. Rather, the LED walls become your green screen, your backdrop.

They hired a company that drove through the city and shot the plates, but found they had to recreate the lighting effect of a bus going past lampposts.

“We created two lines of lights coming into the bus, behind and above the LED walls. We also wanted to be able to shoot 360, so we surrounded the bus with LED lights.”

Between the dimmer board operator and the driver, Varese created an algorithm that allowed for the traveling light to move at the speed of the bus, while also syncing it with the lights on the walls. On top of that, the scene called for rain, so all the fixtures inside the bus had to be replaced with new LED lights.

“I’m very technical and at the same time artistic,” Varese said. “I was ecstatic that it worked.”

Let’s Talk About the Future of Newsrooms

NAB

How much of a broadcast newsroom operation can be done remotely now that the return to office clarion is being sounded?

https://amplify.nabshow.com/articles/lets-talk-about-the-future-of-newsrooms/

The physical newsroom has been morphed by Covid with news organizations and journalists forced to address the extent of change in the months ahead.

Speakers at the Poynter Conference, “Newsgathering-From-Home: What we’ve lost and learned in one year of remote journalism,” as reported by the University of Mississippi School of Journalism and New Media’s NewsLab, predict newsrooms will not be as full and structured as they used to be.

Like employees in other parts of M&E, journalists neither want to fully come back to the newsroom nor want to fully stay at home.

There is a need to look at which positions are really needed on site, such as producers who are “the glue” of the newsroom, while reporters and photographers do not necessarily need to be present.

Stations owned by the Graham Media Group will go back to work in person depending on their market and on their local COVID-19 infection rates, according to Emily Barr, president and CEO Graham Broadcasting at the conference. Still, 70% of Graham Media employees work remotely today.

Barr reports that the pandemic showed that online morning meetings can be very efficient, since anyone can dial in from anywhere and directly head to their report location, instead of having to show up to the office first. That saves a lot of time and a lot of gas.

Some positions are harder to perform remotely, like directors and some of the assignment editors who still work in the buildings, Barr explains, but most reporters and anchors work remotely from home.

Producers are doing most of the job remotely with only one person in the control room. That balance seems to be working for Graham Media Group, whose employees have now settled into a new routine, even though the social camaraderie of going to the office is missing.

The way the job is done has also shifted during the pandemic: everybody now owns a ring light, if they did not own one before. Journalists realized a lot can be done with an iPhone and a ring light, contradicting the argument that heavy and expensive cameras are necessary to do the job.

A shift also seems to have occurred in the relationship between news anchors and journalists and their audience. Broadcasting from their living room or kitchen this past year has levelled the field a little: guess what newscasters also have families too and are forced to work from home just like us.

 

“The lack of access to professional gear and to TV studios has somehow broken the fourth wall with the audience,” suggests NewsLab.

It’s not a trivial side effect. While the impact of seeing potential clutter of daily lives rather than the clinical and formal look of a hermetically sealed studio has “humanized” our journalists “and made them more relatable to viewers “It has shown us how unequal we are,” according to Kristen Hare, editor of Locally at Poynter.

She points out that she and some journalist/anchors have the luxury of a guest room to work from at home — something that won’t be mirrored in most people’s experience including legions of newsroom staffers.

Concerns were also raised about the privacy and personal safety of especially anchors working from home, since aspects of their personal lives are being revealed.

NewsLab is part of the UM School of Journalism and New Media at the University of Mississippi.

The Poynter Conference’s “Newsgathering-From-Home” is the first On Poynt session in a new four-part series about the newsroom of the future.

 

BT Sport goes remote from Porto for UEFA Champions League final

IBC

The BT Sport presentation team were on board a plane circling in a holding pattern over Europe for two weeks until they could finally tell the pilot where to land.

https://www.ibc.org/trends/bt-sport-goes-remote-from-porto-for-uefa-champions-league-final/7589.article

Jamie Hindhaugh, the broadcaster’s COO, uses the analogy to describe plans for the 2021 Champions League final which were thrown up in the air when the UK government’s Covid-related travel ban torpedoed hosting the game in Istanbul.

“The biggest challenge for the final and all our Champions League coverage this season has been the travel restrictions, the late notifications and the lack of clarity which has made it very difficult,” he tells IBC365.

UEFA eventually decided to relocate the tie between Chelsea and Manchester City to Porto in UK green list country Portugal.

“Most of the planning was done but it’s not as straight forward as moving from one location to another 3,000km away. There’s a different country, different connectivity and a different set up,” Hindhaugh says.

One element that didn’t change was UEFA’s host broadcast provision by Mediapro with whom BT Sport have worked many times before. The Barcelona-based facilities group has produced and distributed the world feed for the last two Champions League finals.

“When Porto was announced it wasn’t clear whether Portugal’s borders would be open,” Hindhaugh says. “If fans were not allowed to travel then it was important to us that we would not send a presentation team either. With limited fans allowed into the ground (6000 tickets per team), we have decided to send a pres team.”

Nonetheless, it’s a stripped-down crew that has travelled out to Porto mainly in support of on-air talent led by Gary Lineker and BT Sport’s match commentators.

“We’ve been doing wide area production over the past year on at least 70 Premier League games so it has sort of become normal,” says BT Sport chief engineer Andy Beale. “The challenge is that relaying feeds from Porto is over a much longer distance with greater connectivity challenges. Nonetheless, you realise how much of a step forward we’ve taken in the space of 12 months.”

Host feed and unilateral presentation
Mediapro is producing a dual HDR 4K feed and HD SDR feed which BT Sport is augmenting with eight camera positions of its own. These include three cams on the presentation platform with Lineker and pundits. On either gantry there’s a Sony HDC-4300 with zooms to enable BT Sport’s match director control of some close-ups, particularly during pre-match warm-up and post-match analysis and also to pick up VIPs in the crowd (Manchester City fan Noel Gallagher is expected to be singled out).

There are also two reporter cameras (4300s with smaller lenses) for pitch side interviews and two Sony F55s carrying prime lenses behind and to the side of each goal for filmic beauty shot additions to edits and highlight packages. The F55 camera operators will also be tasked with capturing fan reaction.

A Timeline truck will be onsite, mainly facilitating connectivity of all the signals. In the truck the feeds are encoded in HEVC. One encoder runs native 4K and another five return the individual 1080p 50 ISOs. All are routed over dual 1Gig fibre links from the venue into BT’s Stratford studio along with VoIP and talkback. BT Sport’s director, producer, VT ops and graphics ops control the production in Stratford and send it to air.

This remote template is now par for the course at the broadcaster which has performed hundreds of such operations in the past 12 months.

“The last time we did a full OB from the Champions League in 2019 we sent 200 people,” Hindhaugh says. “This week we’ll send 43. The rest of the crew are in London. The world is changing and we’ve proved you don’t need to chew up airmiles by sending crew to venues. Actually, we can do the job as well, if not better, remotely.”

He explains: “At the studio we have access to all our tools and the archive so we can respond to a story really quickly. For example, if a player has an injury similar to a previous one we can search the archive, pull out a relevant clip and make that part of editorial. Genuinely, there is no compromise editorially and there are big benefits.”

This includes the sanity of the crew, who in normal circumstances for a major OB would have to arrive on site hours before kick-off after enduring a lengthy navigation of security.

“We’ve seen how much more relaxed production folk are working in a remote world,” Hindhaugh says. “The tempo and stress levels in our production teams who don’t have to worry about getting to site on time, plus the comfort of having more space to work in, is a big step forward."

YouTube viewers get HFR
BT’s coverage includes a 4K HDR Dolby sound version for its Ultimate platform and a standard HD SDR for BT Sport 1 HD. The HDR distribution is PQ since the feed is predominantly received by mobile device and smart TVs over the internet not through the STB.

As before, the broadcaster will share the live feed for free to audiences on YouTube. This time around the experience will be in high frame rates.

“Every year we’ve partnered with YouTube we’ve moved the quality up,” Beale says. “We will push 50p into YouTube and they will transcode on the fly in the cloud outputting 60p. The difference in quality is breathtaking… the motion portrayal is brilliant.”

BT Sport also has camera crew at fan parks in Manchester and London as well as in two club-affiliated pubs for colour.

“We have to recognise there is still a very limited number of fans who can travel so we will bring that colour into our programming all the way through,” Hindhaugh says. “It’s the biggest game in the calendar. The only thing we’re cautious about is that when there’s only two British teams in the final there’s more of a polarisation in the audience. But this is the standout game of the season.”

The last time two English Premier League clubs fought it out in the final, when Liverpool beat Spurs in 2019, viewing figures to BT Sport’s broadcast over digital and linear topped 11.3 million, the highest figures BT Sport has ever had across all channels.

BT Sport has the rights to air the Champions League until 2024 in a three-year deal worth more than £1.2 billion.

To ensure no-one watching misses a kick, the broadcaster has a triple lock redundancy. Aside from dual fibre routes, as a third layer of redundancy there will be two encoders running a lower bit rate that squeezes into two 27MHz satellite transponders for return of the eight presentation feeds plus comms. UEFA has arranged separate match feed relay by satellite.

“If there’s a catastrophic failure with terrestrial connectivity then we’ve still got access,” Beale says. “We have more belts and braces on this thing than you can imagine.”

There are inevitably some small compromises. While Istanbul’s Atatürk Olympic Stadium was fully outfitted with fibre, the same wasn’t possible in two weeks at FC Porto’s Estádio do Dragão. That means fewer than the normal compliment of cameras (from 40 to around 30). Aviation clearance wasn’t possible for a helicopter and BT Sport’s dedicated VR truck couldn’t make the journey.

360-fans won’t be disappointed though since BT is able to take UEFA’s own live VR feed and make that available through the BT app.

Remote distributed permanent production
“Remote is our default way of working now,” says Hindhaugh. “We’ll always tweak and refine it. There are always options depending on connectivity at the venue but the benefits are vast. We have opportunities to enhance our output and reach sustainability goals. The key thing is that we’ve maintained the quality of our output at UHD HDR. Remote is how we are building our workflows going forward.”

Indeed, BT Sport has only made three non-remote OBs in the last year. Two of those were from boxing venues with no connectivity and required two trucks rather than one to accommodate social distancing and the third was a deliberate choice to try out some new technology which it was not possible to do any other way.

BT Sport is currently outfitting its Stratford facility with an IP core as the next stage in its move to cloud.

“We look at cloud all the time,” says Beale. “For a live tier 1 event or as a match host broadcaster the tools are not yet rich enough. If I were trying to produce a tier 3 event where I had adequate internet connectivity on site then cloud is getting to the point of possibility. But in live cloud production demos I’ve seen they tend to be about cutting pictures which, in my opinion, is the easy bit. The challenging part is always the control layer, the tally and comms, the audio mixes and IFBs and clean feeds that need to catch up with switching video. Those are all relatively low bitrate applications in terms of getting in and out of cloud but no one has built those solutions.”

He adds: “We first worked with ST-2110 suppliers back in 2016, nothing has really changed in that space in five years. Interop in 2110 is poor and the business benefits aren’t really there, but if you compare the evolution of cloud tech in the same period then it’s clear that it won’t be long before we see some of our productions moving into that space.”

Going Remote Opens Pandora’s Box for sound visionaries Formosa

copy written for Sohonet

Fans of CBS shows Dynasty and Bull would have been bereft were it not for the smart work of post producer Formosa Group. The latest seasons of the shows were finished during the pandemic using remote workflows only possible with ClearView Flex.

https://www.sohonet.com/our-resources/blogs/going-remote-opens-pandoras-box-for-sound-visionaries-formosa/

Formosa Group, with multiple locations throughout North America and the UK, is a Streamland Media company and full-service post-production sound facility comprised of award-winning creative talent.  Across its many divisions, Formosa Group engages with filmmakers and content creators to tell stories through sound offers content creators services including sound supervision and design, sound and music editorial, re-recording mixing, integration and music for film, broadcast, games and other platforms.  

“We pride ourselves in accommodating client requests, one of which was the need for remote playback,” says Danial Shimiaei, director, Operations & Engineering, Formosa NoHo. “Interest in this service actually began years ago.”

Long before anyone knew of Covid-19, Formosa was exploring solutions for connecting clients remotely to its studio. They used techniques like Source-Connect or dedicated hardware solutions to operate between different studios with dedicated systems but with showrunners and EPs increasingly short of time and wanting access from whichever office, hotel room or overseas location they might be, a new solution was required.  About three years ago, various streaming systems were deployed for this niche requirement.

“We played around with different tech, but they all relied on some type of dedicated server to push the material out, or were not super robust for all customers,” he says. “When the pandemic forced us to service more clients working from home with higher demands on quality, we had to come up with a different solution.”

For Shimiaei the main issue was finding a technology that enabled smooth real-time streams with very low latency. 

“Whether you are doing picture or audio post, the client has to be able to interact with creative talent otherwise it’s just a totally frustrating experience. Latency was a factor on the technologies we tried to find the best quality. Also lack of a buffering mechanism with other systems results in loss of dropped frames leading to a poor experience for customers.”

Then they tried ClearView Flex.

“The buffering capability that is serviced by Sohonet through ClearView Flex provides a better experience for customers to review and approve material and conduct session notes with our creative talent in real-time environment providing a seamless process.”

Between its various divisions, Formosa Group has multiple ClearView Flex units. In LA alone between Formosa, Picture Shop and Picture Head, Streamland Media companies can draw on at least seventeen boxes as demand dictates.

“The system is very easy to administer, and the service provided by Sohonet is robust whether that’s from a sound stage, a picture suite or offsite. It is really quite simple to setup and operate.”

Formosa uses ClearView principally for dubbing sessions and final playback with Zoom open for interactive communication. 

“We ingest a video signal from the final playback video file into ClearView embedded with audio being mixed on the stage. Client receives a real-time stream via a one-time use key to access their show which is superbly secure.”

“To preserve as close to the audio fidelity of our mix as possible, on recipient end we ideally don’t want them to listen with earbuds or regular laptop speakers. There are too many unknowns and variables to the quality of playback. Initially we had made specific headphone recommendations and over time, as our clients have done more work remotely, everyone has managed to find an environment with which they are comfortable. This could be using professional headphones or streaming ClearView through a home theater setup.”

CBS’ prime time episodic drama Dynasty was renewed for a fourth season in January 2020 and premiered in May 2021 following a post production pipeline that adhered to Covid-19 social distance rules. Similarly, the fourth series of legal drama Bull aired in 2020 with a fifth season now in production. Both dramas are using an audio mixing route reliant on ClearView Flex for client-artist interaction.

The all-round experience has not only proved invaluable as a temporary fix. Remote workflows will be a mainstay of post production going forward.

“Our observation is that it is going to be equal and concurrent ratio for in facility/remote workflows,” Shimiaei says.  “Clients are eager to return and enjoy the stage environment as before, yet there are others who may be reluctant to do so or have discovered a new method for their busy schedules.  Many are now more comfortable with the remote viewing experience. For that reason, we still need to have the ability to stream a final product out to our clients whether they are in their office, travelling, or at home.”

“I believe remote has become a natural part of our workflow. Pandora’s Box has been opened and with content platforms launching and production demand ramping up it’s not going to shut. Clients will want flexibility to review material and work with our artists live using ClearView simply because it will save them valuable time getting to the final product.

 

Following on: Sky Sports sends The Hundred into the Aether

SVG Europe

With less than 100 days until the newest format of cricket makes its debut, it is now time to get to grips with the Americanised version of the 300-year-old sport.

https://www.svgeurope.org/blog/headlines/sky-sports-sends-the-hundred-into-the-aether/

While cricket fans do love a stat, arguably the broadcast presentation of the match needs as much of a shake up as the hallowed rules of the game itself, especially if The Hundred is to attract those all-important younger demographics.

That is where data comes into play. We are light years away from basic score overlays; data today drives pretty much everything.

Live and die by data

“Data is a new currency for rights holders and for federations and the faster it is delivered the more valuable it becomes,” says Mark Bowden, product director at AE Live.

Federations are now starting to want in-house control of data not least because it powers official scoring and adjudication. Data also enables them to control and implement the rules of the game and manage the overall event.

But there is more power to data than this, which a new platform called Aether from AE Live has been evolved to provide.

“We’ve always been a data provider except that typically the data we provide as graphics lives and dies in the lifecycle of the onscreen graphic,” Bowden says. “Now we have the ability to collect and share that data with federations and rights holders and to help them create and distribute multiple applications out of it.”

For The Hundred, AE Live will generate graphics remotely for Sky Sports’ host broadcast as well as producing augmented reality content at the venues. Sky Sports plans a hybrid operation to get the best of both worlds.

The same set of real-time scoring data will be used to drive graphics around the LED perimeter of the grounds and the venue’s main scoreboard. It will also be used to automate Sky Sports’ highlights packages.

What is new is that all the data is being ingested, orchestrated and distributed from AE Live’s new platform, Aether.

Introducing Aether

Aether comprises two main components: data handling and graphics rendering, Bowden explains. The data element allows for the creation of new data points that enable the creation of new content.

“The ability to render graphics in the cloud, in real time and in sync with the main broadcast allows rights holders to approach their digital viewers from a whole new perspective,” he says. “The system requires no additional hardware on venue and the outputs are controlled by the main graphics operator, so the integration is seamless.”

The successful delivery of The Hundred draft in October 2019 (with a mini-draft earlier this year to update players and teams following 2020’s event postponement,) marked the first outing of Aether. This provided the backbone for the player registration system, through to the software the teams used to draft on the night, and the data that was fed to digital and broadcast partners. The database is behind all the broadcast graphics for the tournament when it goes live in July.

The nucleus of the workflow has not changed. An AE Live scorer at the ground will log data, such as a run, into their laptop which automatically triggers changes to on-screen, giant screen and LED graphics. The difference is that instead of ‘disappearing’ (into the ether) this data is now available within Aether to be segmented, shaped, targeted and published to wider or niche audiences in an array of formats, such as mobile.

Federating data

“With the creation of Aether, AE will be in a position that allows us to federate third party feeds and blend them with our scoring data and manage it all on the behalf of rights holders,” Bowden says. “This will allow for a greater scope of data that can be used for broadcast or delivered to third parties.”

AE Live believes federations value what Bowden calls, “a single source of truth”: one set of verified, accurate, official data owned and controlled by the federations.

“We are a Babelfish,” says Bowden. “We take everything in, standardise it and translate it and give it back out to the end consumer. We’re offering data as a managed service because it is so complex to manage all those data sources, keep it in synch and distribute it.

“Rather than having three to four people at the same game logging, each perhaps a little differently which leads to discrepancies, federations want a supplier who can take in everything and manage it end to end. Aether does that.”

For example, fans who want more in-depth analytics could have a feed that has more advanced metrics on the graphics instead of the standard scoring data. A younger fan might want more colourful graphics that present the data in a way that explains the game in a simple way.

Targeting adverts based on location is also possible, so if a rights partner would like to have a country specific advert on a digital feed, this can be done using Aether. Fundamentally the same look and feel could be used, but specific company logos could be used based on region.

Automating personalised feeds

AE Live is also in a prime position to assist in aiding the delivery of additional video content to digital platforms, Bowden reckons. “With a scorer already in position on venue, the data points that are gathered are accurate not just in terms of the match situation but also in terms of timing,” he says. “This requirement for being frame accurate allows us to expand our logging to also include contextual data that will allow for additional data points to generate highlights almost instantly.”

The database will be able to not only produce the situational information (eg, bowler, batsman facing and match score); it will also provide digital partners with a timecode reference of when a natural in and out of the clip should exist. Example uses could be outputs for social media platforms, so highlights that are branded automatically using the same data that is generated for the main broadcast feed but created in a style that is more suited to the output format.

Another service that can be powered by this is Catch Up To Live, where the user may have missed the first 15 overs of a cricket match, yet they are able to get up to speed with the content in a timescale that suits them. So, if the user only has five minutes, the highlights are condensed to that duration and delivered to them based on their preferences.

While The Hundred is a prime use case for this technology, AE Live has grand plans for taking this wider to sports including rugby, tennis, basketball; frankly, the sky is the limit.

All 68 games (34 men and 34 women’s) will air live Sky Sports’ dedicated The Hundred channel, and on Sky Sports Mix, available for Sky subscribers without the sport package to access. All women’s matches and most men’s matches will also be streamed on Sky Cricket’s YouTube channel.

The Hundred kicks off on Wednesday 21 July and runs till Saturday 21 August. The eight teams taking part are: Birmingham Phoenix (Edgbaston); London Spirit (Lord’s); Manchester Originals (Emirates Old Trafford); Northern Superchargers (Emerald Headingley); Oval Invincibles (Kia Oval); Southern Brave (Ageas Bowl); Trent Rockets (Trent Bridge); and Welsh Fire (Sophia Gardens).

 

Emperor – enriching business with advanced remote production

copy written for LucidLink

Leading branded content and marketing agency upgrades its VPN for an ultra-fast seamlessly integrated LucidLink work experience for all creative staff and clients.

The Company

https://www.lucidlink.com/case-study/emperor-enriching-business-with-advanced-remote-production/

Emperor is one of the UK’s leading employee-owned creative agencies. It specializes in reporting, brand, employee experience, and sustainability and is an expert in getting the most from integrated media and channels. Through this knowledge, Emperor enables its clients, including blue-chip brands BP, BT, ReckittReckit Benckiser, and the London Stock Exchange, to deliver better business.  

Emperor employs over 200 diverse, talented and experienced people across a national and international network in London, Edinburgh, Manchester, Warwick, and Dubai.

Introduction

As part of a broader and ongoing strategy to streamline and optimize its services and internal workflows, Emperor investigated migrating its core on-premise production servers to the cloud. The global pandemic accelerated this strategy leading the agency to seek a robust, secure, and super-fast cloud NAS.

The pandemic panicked many companies into committing to temporary sub-optimal solutions to business continuity, but Emperor had had the foresight to prepare. “While we couldn’t have predicted anything like the impact of a pandemic, we had begun the process of moving to a more agile, cost-effective, and time-efficient working environment in the cloud,” explains Noel O’Connor, Founder & Creative Director. “We ran standalone servers in our office locations, and while we could connect to them, we knew we needed something faster for the long term.” 

“Before Covid, we had looked into Microsoft Azure but found the user experience was not a lot different to what we were doing with our Virtual Private Network (VPN), so we shelved the idea,” O’Connor says. “When the pandemic hit, we moved to work from home and continued using the VPN while raising the search for an easy-to-use, high-speed, cloud-based server to the top of the agenda.” 

Business Challenge

The challenge facing Emperor before the pandemic was to find a quicker, seamless solution for access to files across its national and international hubs. Working remotely from home only exacerbated the issue.

“We had access to our data, but it could be unacceptably slow, which made it very difficult to perform some tasks,” O’Connor explains. “Our team had to download media locally in order to work on them efficiently. That’s fine if it’s a word document, but invariably we are exchanging files of several gigs worth of data.”

For designing and publishing marketing and communications materials and annual financial reports, Emperor works predominantly in the Adobe Creative Cloud Suite and, in particular, with large InDesign files. Creating a PDF from InDesign files comprised of multiple high-resolution, high color fidelity JPEG, TIFF, PNG, and other graphics formats with links typically involves several Gigabits of data. Sharing even this core asset over VPN either internally or for client review and approval was proving very challenging.

“To create a PDF proof, you have to have all the links accessible, and doing this over VPN was extremely painful,” O’Connor says. “VPN is really dependent on the available broadband connection, which varies across our teams and can be compromised when working from home by other users sharing the connection.”

The company had a very structured and disciplined set of processes for how it operated in the studio. This was designed so that they could assign project teams of half a dozen or more members with access to the same set of assets regardless of whether they were in the UK or in a different time zone.

Situation post-move

“When we moved out of the office, we did so overnight. As well as setting up numerous VPN connections, we also set up workstations on-site that were connected to our network, allowing users to remote into our studio environment and carry out certain workflows as if they sat in the office. This solution undoubtedly helped but was still clunky and cumbersome for the users.” 

The team was also acutely conscious of the potential for file and version management issues and implemented systems and procedures to avoid this as specific files and images had to be worked on locally. “We operate out of 5 studios – which at the time was effectively 230 studios, O’Connor illustrates, “as we were all working from home and had to maintain a tight regime to ensure the integrity of our data and backups.

“For all these reasons, we needed an overhaul of our basic connectivity,” O’Connor says. “But that seems like a long time ago. It’s amazing how fast you adapt to change, and the team is working so fluently on LucidLink now it’s as if they’ve forgotten how frustrating and time-consuming life was before.”

Solution 

Emperor tasked its IT partner EACS with finding a solution. “They presented several concepts to us. None seemed to give us much of an edge on what we already had. Apart from LucidLink – that immediately stood out.”

O’Connor and his team dived into further research. “We sat in on webinars where Adobe demonstrated using collaborative tools for media, and we set up some test accounts internally and tested, and tested, and tested it.”

“Unanimously, we thought LucidLink was really fast and something we could benefit from.”

Results – Seamless InDesign collaboration

Installed and in use since last autumn, Emperor has migrated virtually all of its desktop publishing applications and practices to the cloud using LucidLink as the bedrock connectivity.

“It took a while for us all to adapt to working remotely but almost no time at all to get up and running with LucidLink,” O’Connor says. “In particular, we needed a solution to work with Adobe InDesign. With our previous solution, creating PDFs remotely was very challenging. The experience working with InDesign has been extremely straightforward. LucidLink’s solution is undoubtedly a better way of working and what’s most impressive is that it is incredibly fast.

“All the time it was taking to manage and transport data backward and forwards – well, all those issues have gone away. We now work directly from the cloud server. There should be no situation where people need material on their desktops. When someone else in our team picks up the job, all the assets are in the cloud – the single source of truth.” 

“LucidLink has changed the way we can access our files. Although we are all remote, now the experience is like being in the office.”

In the future, the intention is to streamline workflows further by moving to one centralized set of cloud-based folders for all live projects. Along with countless other businesses, Emperor is planning to return to work at the office where the future of the workspace itself has been permanently altered.

Work-life balance 

O’Connor says, “We plan to return to the office at the beginning of summer, but this will likely be a hybrid’ hub and spoke’ model. We will definitely lean on remote working technology and infrastructure from LucidLink to give us far greater flexibility in terms of how we work as a team and how we liaise with clients.”

For all the frustration and anxiety of the enforced working from home period, it has also proven the benefits of technology in allowing a more balanced working life. 

He adds, “There are definitely some of our team who would prefer not to commute every day, who can be just as if not more productive at home as in the office and who can now collaborate with colleagues and clients just as seamlessly from wherever they are working.”

 

Building a Better SVOD Platform

NAB

Media executives can be forgiven for being in a tailspin. Consumers’ viewing habits are changing on a dime. The latest piece of research, from Amdocs Media, contradicts another recent report from Deloitte at the same time as elaborating on one of its central findings. 

The perfect subscription package might not be one that incorporates lots of fresh original TV shows and movies. It’s that — plus one that offers an a la carte menu of digital lifestyle services from gaming to fitness to shopping.

https://amplify.nabshow.com/articles/what-do-you-need-to-deliver-the-perfect-svod-platform/

Amdocs’ survey of 1000 US streamers revealed that competitive pricing alone isn’t the primary driver supporting retention and new subscriber acquisition.

That goes against Deloitte’s conclusion that cost, not content, was the chief though not only cause of churn from VOD service subscriptions.

While cost is still a factor with consumers, it’s no longer the most significant reason they stick around. Per Amdocs, when asked what drives their loyalty to video streaming services, almost half declared the amount of content (49%), followed by the quality of the content (45%) and then pricing (38%).

What’s more, OTT video services are more accretive to a household’s existing TV packages than a binary like for like cord cutting for SVOD take-up. A third of consumers, extrapolates this survey, added a new SVOD sub while only 8% cancelled a satellite/cable subscription. This indicates that cord-cutting options are more of an addition to consumers’ personal content bundles, rather than a replacement.

“Notably, consumers are very interested in selecting specific shows from different providers to create a unique content bundle, and are even willing to pay more for this feature,” finds Amdocs’ Darcy Antonellis, Head of Amdocs Media, and CEO at Amdocs parent Vubiquity.

Best of Breed Optionality

This is supported by other evidence of our confined at home experience. It seems that more of us have caught the habit of paying for a whole range of streaming services ranging from fitness (like Peloton) and remote learning alongside the standard digital media services such as gaming, video and music.

Online gaming has shown the most dramatic increase, with 49% of those polled saying they are playing more than before the pandemic. 45% also spend at least $25 per month on services like PlayStation Plus, Xbox All Access and GamePass, Stadia and Nintendo Online.

But it’s the emergence of popularity in other digital subscription services such as eLearning (36%), wellness and e-Health that catches the eye. A third of respondents have added at least one subscription of these since the start of the pandemic.

This is important if you believe as Amdocs does that these newfound experiences will lead to a “deeper, diverse partner ecosystem”, providing consumers “optionality” of best-of-breed subscription offerings. Each consumer will have their own idea of what their personalized bundle looks like, and that’s the beauty of it; this solution will give consumers the control to design a streaming service that’s unique to their hobbies and interests.

“COVID-19 has changed the consumer mindset to getting what they want without leaving the house,” says Antonellis. “This brings an opportunity for service providers to bundle other popular digital services like online gaming, delivery services, remote work options, and eLearning.”

Diversified and Flexible Bundles

Deloitte identified something similar in its survey but confined its argument to media and entertainment services.

Customers seem to be calling for diversified and flexible bundles that meet their evolving digital lifestyle, but are streaming services ready to provide an all-in-one solution, giving customers access to everything they need in one place?

“There’s an opportunity here,” argues Antonellis, “for providers to improve their service offerings and their customers’ experiences by sharing content that’s relevant to them, whether that’s a new TV show, a new song or even a new game, all in one place. Consumers are even willing to pay more for specific content if it meant they could create the “perfect” bundle pulled from a diverse ecosystem of offerings.”

While it’s clear that it’s important to give customers plenty of choice, there’s a fine line between just enough, and too much… get it right and service providers are presented with a golden opportunity.

 

Repeat Business: Why We’re Watching (and Rewatching) Classic TV Series

NAB 

Imagine a world without Friends. It’s hard to do right? Friends is a fixture of the small screen everywhere but in an age where new content is being offered to us in so much volume why are we still watching old shows like it?

https://amplify.nabshow.com/articles/repeat-business-watching-and-rewatching-a-tv-series/Feel-good, risk-free, anxiety-relieving COVID-free bubbles of fluff like Friends are proving the perfect antidote for many in these troubled times.

Not for nothing did WarnerMedia pluck Friends from Netflix for exclusive play on HBO Max. The five-year deal was worth $425 million over five years, not bad for a show that aired its last episode 17 years ago.

Friends is far from the only example of nostalgic binge watching. NBCUniversal spent $500 million to stream the US version of The Office on Peacock despite the show ending in 2013. That’s because it was the most streamed program in the US last year when Netflix held rights according to Nielsen data. Americans cumulatively streamed a total of more than 57 billion minutes of it, nearly 10 million more than its closest rival.

And it’s not even a patch on Ricky Gervais’ BBC original.

Other shows to rank highly on Nielsen’s list include New Girl and Vampire Diaries, both of which ended their runs more than two years ago. HBO reported a 200% increase in views of classic but old drama The Sopranos, which in the UK had a 122% rise in viewing on Sky NOW between March and October 2020 when we all locked down.

“By reducing the element of risk, contrastingly, a rewatch can possess a restorative, zen-like

Other legacy shows commanding high rights fees and the security of large audiences are The Big Bang Theory and South Park, both snapped up for multiple millions of dollars for HBO Max and Seinfeld which Netflix will relaunch later this year in a half a billion dollar five year deal.

So why all the fuss? Analysis on the BBC website throws up a number of suggestions.

It could be that overwhelmed by so much choice, we sometimes just want something where we know exactly what to expect.

Feel-Good, Risk-Free Comfort Zone

The need for televisual comfort food would be understandably heightened as an escape from life’s current external pressures.

Following on, it is certain types of program which deliver more security than others. Once you know who “H” is in BBC hit crime drama Line of Duty are you more or less likely to revisit past series? The tension in its interrogation scenes made it a must watch at primetime, but will we eschew the stress a second time round?

Knowing the outcome has a therapeutic quality, suggests author David Renshaw; “By reducing the element of risk, contrastingly, a rewatch can possess a restorative, zen-like power.”

That’s why comedy shows are prime repeat fodder. In the UK, the BBC is replaying John Cleese’s 1970’s classic comedy Fawlty Towers in peak time, perhaps because of a dearth of new material on its books. Some (well, lots of) sexist material aside, the slapstick works surprisingly well for younger audiences who have never heard of Monty Python.

Daniel D’Addario, Variety’s chief TV critic, suggests that the trend for rewatching classic series dates back further than the pandemic. Part of it is a matter of technology having caught up to our interest and desires.

He says, “You no longer have to wait for TV reruns or invest in DVD boxsets — these things are waiting for you online. Then there is the comfort of familiarity. The things people are binging are not deeply experimental, you know the rhythms of these shows very well. It’s about knowing what you’re getting and letting it wash over you.”

Ambient TV

Content producers are even commissioning non-intrusive television to wash over our Zoomed-out days.

Writer Kyle Chayka coined the term “ambient TV” to describe anodyne shows like Netflix’s Emily in Paris as “soothing, slow, and relatively monotonous” but ideal for as background noise while we catch up on more important things like Facebook.

Renshaw even digs up a 2013 academic paper suggesting that old TV is good for the soul. Jaye L Derrick, associate professor of social psychology at the University of Houston, described the restorative nature of repeats as creating a sense of “social surrogacy”, i.e. the familiarity we have inviting Chandler, Rachel and co into our living rooms.

That said, even Friends has its cultural sell-by date. I Love Lucy once held Friends-like popularity and just look at it now.

 

There’s No Escaping Video, Especially at Work

NAB Amplify

Whether through live Zoom calls, virtual event experiences, or asynchronous video messaging — the use of video exploded in 2020.

https://amplify.nabshow.com/articles/theres-no-escaping-video-especially-at-work/

That trajectory isn’t expected to change. In fact, we’ll all be using video to connect, educate, sell and build teams more than ever, according to a new report which suggests everyone is becoming a video content creator.

No longer are we dependent on massive production budgets and teams. The proliferation of user-generated “record-and-share” videos within the business world for sales, marketing, and internal comms is the new norm now that everyone has gotten comfortable with using that embedded webcam.

The latest Video in Business Benchmark Report from Vidyard reckons there has been a 135% increase in the number of videos created at work or for business last year.

As more individuals across the organization become creators, it’s no surprise that 60% of overall videos in 2020 were user-generated or user-recorded versus the 40% that were uploaded or produced in more traditional ways.

“Just over half (58%) of viewers watch a video to the end if it’s less than 60 seconds, but only 24% will finish a video if it’s more than 20 minutes.”

The most common types of business-created videos are product demos, followed by how-to’s, explainers, and webinars. The popularity of “how-to” videos in particular has seen a 50% increase over 2019 results.

Almost half of survey respondents are using training videos within their organizations. Again, this isn’t surprising, given the shift to digital-first work in 2020 and the need to connect and upskill employees remotely.

One of the most notable callouts is the exponential growth in the use of one-to-one video. This is most common for salespeople as a means to communicate with prospects and customers, but it’s also becoming a critical internal communications tool as well. The percentage of respondents who report they are investing in one-to-one video grew from 7% in 2019 to 40% in 2020, representing a 471% increase year-over-year.

The likelihood of a more hybrid office-work from home working life will see us continue to use video at far higher levels than pre-2020 but there’s signs of fatigue also.

The average video length across all videos included in this report is just over 6.06 minutes and just under half of viewers watch a video all the way through, regardless of the video’s length — but that’s down from the 52% who would do the same in 2019.

Just over half (58%) of viewers watch a video to the end if it’s less than 60 seconds, but only 24% will finish a video if it’s more than 20 minutes.

The take-away: don’t deviate from the subject matter of the video and get your message across quickly and clearly.

 

Local content hits home for SVODs

IBC

After years of cost squeezing, major efforts are underway to increase the volume and quality of content localisation. 

https://www.ibc.org/trends/local-content-hits-home-for-svods/7560.article

Major SVOD streamers are on a runaway train. Having saturated their domestic – North American – market the only way for them to continue to drive subscriptions in the hope of chasing profit is to grow globally. 

Netflix, Disney, Amazon and rivals are expanding into all quarters of the globe and heavily investing in local-language productions in a frantic bid to add international subscribers. The boom has fuelled demands for localised content that the streamers simply can’t cater for on their own. 

“You can’t win customers in a material way without giving viewers content in their language and at a quality level that’s consistent with the English version,” says Chris Fetner, MD of the Entertainment Globalization Association (EGA).  “Localisation is an essential business for global streaming.” 

And yet, he warns: “With the exception of maybe Netflix, the workflow is fairly non-standard and not many companies have invested heavily in this infrastructure. It’s an industry that’s at its breaking point.” 

International growth 
Netflix’s most recent quarterly results show the importance of overseas operations. According to the company, 89% of its approximately 4 million new customers in the first three months of this year came from outside the US and Canada. It has launched in over 190 countries. 

According to Ampere Analysis, “about half of the new content Netflix is developing are productions based outside the US, with roughly 38% non-English-language content as of mid-March”. Netflix plans to invest $500 million alone in South Korean content. 

While only 3% of Disney+ content originated outside the US as of mid-March, Ampere reports that a quarter of its new content slate is based overseas.  

Meanwhile, Amazon has doubled the amount of original local language content each year since 2017. Its international subs rose by more than 80% in 2020 compared with 2019. HBO Max plans to be available in 50+ countries by end of the year and Apple TV+ is currently available in 100+ countries, with both streamers “increasing spending on local-language content as they chase international subscribers”, says Ampere. 

While the globalisation effort requires title translation, packaging, cover art and marketing, the heart of localisation is adapting, translating and dubbing the content for a different language and culture.  

“It is about the commerce of the IP and the IP for that region,” says Fetner. “Both are important for any streamer since it will allow the organisation to get to the audience faster.” 

Flight to quality 
In the past, a major content owner might feed different language versions of its titles to lots of different vendors to perform dub tracks or subtitling. The content owner would co-ordinate the effort inhouse. Now their own operations departments can’t scale quickly enough to manage all the moving parts. 

“There was a time when localisation was seen as a cost that could be continually squeezed by the lowest bidder which inevitably meant you got pretty average translations,” says Symon Roue, MD, Visual Data Media Services. “Now there’s a flight to quality.” 

He adds: “Playing back a bad dub or poor-quality translation or a typo in a subtitle can ruin hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in production.” 

One pressing problem is that there aren’t enough specialists to go around. Local language script adaptors, dubbing directors, translators and - to some extent - actors, are in high demand. 

Training fast tracked 
“When a platform launches in certain territories all the oxygen of capacity can get sucked up for a period,” says Julian Day, general manager & director of business development, Zoo Digital.  

In response, vendors are putting a big effort behind education and training initiatives. Zoo, for example, is working with universities in Kentucky, Milan, Stockholm and Malta to train the next generation of localisation talent.  

“The goal is to help grow a new wave of dubbing artists and adaptors, to support our clients and the industry as a whole,” Day says.  

Where the overwhelming direction of the industry was English into foreign language, now the pendulum is swinging the other way. Huge hits like Money Heist are originating outside of the English-speaking market.  

“A few years ago, Hollywood’s preference would be to remake foreign-language hits like [Scandi noir] The Bridge,” says Fetner. “The whole machine was built to go only one way. Now there’s a huge effort to train those people to go from non-English into English.” 

Foreign-language hits 
Gaumont’s French thriller series Lupin is the most popular non-English-language title on Netflix ever and could even exceed The Witcher as the streamer’s biggest hit full stop. 

“The time, effort and detail that has gone into casting the voices to really connect with the talent as they sounded when they were speaking French is beautiful,” commends Roue. “It’s a real area of expertise.” 

Lupin caught Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos’ eye too. “This show wasn’t like a watered-down French show,” he said in an earnings call. “The more local you are, the more likely you are to play around the world.”  

Adds Simon Constable, lead SVP of global localisation at Visual Data Media Services: “If Netflix brings a show into the US it needs to know it will sound as close as possible for the English dubbing. That has traditionally been a real challenge because there aren’t many people doing foreign-to-English dubbing.” 

Quality control is another hugely important part of the process. “If you have a title requiring French-to-English you need someone who understands French after the translation to make sure the English is truthful to the story of the original,” says Constable. “You also need someone to QC who is focused on the perspective of an English viewer who doesn’t understand the language, constantly asking ‘can I follow the plot?’ These are two different skills that companies like ours are having to do quite a bit of recruitment for new talent for.” 

Craft of localisation 
Script translation and adaptation are considered creative tasks for specialist talent who understand how to transform the story and keep it true to the filmmaker’s intent. 

“Subtitling is still quite a skill since it’s not a literal translation but an adaptation,” says Day. “It requires a thorough grasp of the nuances of language and the observational and people skills to fully understand linguistic delivery.” 

Finnish, for example, tends towards much longer sentences than English, so learning concision without loss of meaning is essential. It often helps to see how much information is communicated non-verbally; through facial expressions, body language, physical actions, staging, use of the camera, music and sound effects. 

“In order to be a competent translator you need to pay attention to the whole thing. Visuals and audio as well as the dialogue. Think beyond the transcription of the dialogue.” 

That’s why artificial intelligence is not yet the solution.  

AI not the answer
“The technology is still incredibly rudimentary,” says Roue. “We’ve tested a lot of translation engines and while some are good at certain types of content in a particular language there’s no such thing as a bullet proof AI in every language.” 

Anything that reduces time to market by automating time-consuming processes has value though. Zoo Digital, for example, uses “assistive technology” to help its creators as opposed to trying to replace them. 

“It’s naïve to think that AI will never play more of a part, but the timescale runs fairly parallel to when we might expect to read a bestseller or have an Oscar-winning script written completely by AI,” says Fetner. “Localisation is an artistic process.” 

Metadata wrangling 
As they enter new territories, studios are going into their vaults to localise more English language content. Many of these titles might have had a local version made a decade ago or more for DVD release and will find the quality needs upgrading. The rights to use a certain actor’s voice dub may have expired and require renewing or an entirely new dub. These are just some of the tasks handed to vendors by the streamers.  

“When a streamer launches in a country it’s like a snake swallowing a big animal,” says Fetner. “You try to get the whole thing done at once. You can’t roll out in phases. You have to have the whole library there on the day of launch.” 

The complexity is staggering. Zoo recently completed a mammoth project which involved interrogating and preparing hundreds of thousands of files for a streaming service’s European launch. It reviewed metadata and localised assets across 13 different territories, with around 15,000 lines of data for each language. Each ‘line’, stored across different spreadsheets and systems, typically contained feature or episode titles and a small, medium and long synopsis. On top of this were localised artwork, thumbnails, subtitles, dubs and more. The metadata totalled 780,000 items. 

Tackling complexity  
Mastering standards like IMF allow vendors to collate components in a logical way to build a master file, or wrapper, which ensures the components all sync together at playout.  

“Outside of that, each different vendor is building their own automation and tooling to manage the components throughout the process,” says Roue. 

Anything that can streamline the process for the largest vendors, like Deluxe, Zoo Digital and Visual Data who all work for the main streamers, should help. 

That’s where the EGA comes in. Launched last year, the body aims to drive education and standards to solve the problem of scale. 

“There is an appetite to standardise certain things and drive out inefficiencies,” says Fetner, who led Netflix’s content localisation vendor strategy for nearly a decade. He cites progress on standardising key names and phrases to simplify distribution of titles. 

“We hope to create a schema of common names and phrases in a file format that is extensive and parsable so it can be used across lots of different toolsets. We think we can save thousands of hours a year by just solving this little problem.” 

Beyond that, the EGA has its eye on building a pipeline to solve a potential critical mass on the horizon. “It’s likely that content volume will hit a plateau and the goal is to have enough professional resources available when it does. The problem is that no-one knows what that plateau looks like. It depends on what platforms launch and when. The industry won’t grow without being sufficiently resourced.” 

The Motion Picture Association reported that global subscriptions reached 1.1+ billion last year, rising from 400 million in 2016. Last year Zoo Digital grew its business by one-third and employed another 100 permanent staff to sit with its existing 225 spread across the UK and LA working with 9000 freelancers. 

As streamers expand overseas and handle more content going the other way, the value of the localisation industry is estimated to rise from $2.5 billion today to $3.5 billion in the next couple years. 

“Localisation is a black box that no-one has really studied,” Fetner says. “Do viewers really notice if there’s a spelling error in subtitles? Are 19 characters for subtitling Nordic words sufficient?”

The EGA aims to deliver the industry’s first major piece of empirical research. “SVODs won’t know if they are under-spending on localisation if they don’t understand the impact on the consumer.”