Eurosport plans Beijing Olympics with enhanced AutoMix 2.0

SVG Europe

https://www.svgeurope.org/blog/headlines/eurosport-plans-beijing-olympics-with-enhanced-automix-2-0/

Eurosport’s mission to embrace the potential of remote production and the efficiencies of software-based technologies will take another step forward at the Beijing Winter Olympics when it will plans extensive use of AutoMix. The software solution automates and streamlines production of live audio signals and has just been upgraded with improvements to usability and audio quality.

The broadcaster is already the main customer of the product from Netherlands-based start-up Lean And Mean Audio (Lama) having introduced it for last year’s French Open at Roland Garros. Version 1.0 of the solution was subsequently used by Eurosport for coverage of other tennis majors and cycling events.

Multiple language challenges

“One of the big challenge that companies like Eurosport face is having to support multiple languages,” says Lama founder Jeroen Dieks. In Eurosport’s case this totals 26 commentator feeds for major events. “This necessitates a lot of mixes that they have to create for their online player.”

What AutoMix does is take sounds from the field of play (the ambient sound of a tennis court for example) plus the commentary and auto mix that without need for a traditional hardware mixing desk hardware or an audio engineer.

“All the operator has to do is connect the signal which they can monitor through the GUI and the software will automatically create a broadcast mix for the player.

“We have had instances where one operator was able to mix 90 mixes at one time. Imagine trying to do that as an audio mixer using physical hardware. The ability to do it in software is a lot cheaper [than buying bespoke desks] and from an engineering perspective you need a lot less manpower too.”

The software provides crucial flexibility for broadcasters like Eurosport as it often need to increase and then decrease the number of audio feeds. For events such as an Olympics, allowance for multiple concurrent feeds is needed as there are commentators for various languages, but once the event is over, the number of feeds need to be easily scaled down.

The company says AutoMix has been key to providing Eurosport’s scalability requirements as it can run on any standard computer hardware with an ASIO driver, and has been optimised to run on virtual machines.

“VMs offer more efficiency, as they require less space plus maintenance costs are lower,” explains Ewan Cameron, commercial director. “The flexibility of using AoIP in the software allows for multiple inputs from various locations, meaning commentators can be in separate booths or even different locations, which is essential when catering for COVID-safe restrictions.”

Remote control innovation

One of the specific functions in AutoMix 2.0 which Eurosport is keen to adopt is a new GUI for remote control of the new web user interface that will allow its operators to securely control and monitor the solution from anywhere without a remote desktop tool. This is not only useful for operation under COVID conditions – even from home – but also prevents an operator accidentally altering any settings since the virtual machine is, well virtual, and divorced entirely from the browser interface.

“It has been on the wish list of clients for a while,” says Cameron.

The backend of the new GUI now connects to an API, which allows integration with third party solutions. As an example, this allows clients to control the AutoMix software through an orchestrator like BNCS or DataMiner.

In terms of quality, the latest version has improved microphone bleed detection – another Eurosport requirement.

Cameron explains: “When there is more than one commentator in a booth there will always be bleed between the different microphones. The improved bleed detection ensures that only the correct microphone is levelled while the commentator is talking, leading to a cleaner, more coherent mix. It also means that no operator has do any sound check on levels.”

The software’s Voice Activity Detection can now identify interviews on the International Sound Feed and ride the level to ensure intelligibility.

“Often commentators are having to broadcast from locations with a lot of background noise,” Cameron says. “AutoMix now has the option to apply intelligent noise reduction to effectively reduce this issue.”

The main use case for AutoMix to date has been sports broadcasting, but the underlying technology can be applied to other purposes such as podcasts and talk shows.

Dieks says Lama has now created an AutoMix version that can level a host and several guests and also mix in leaders and underscores. In the context of sports, this could also be used for highlight shows from sporting events.

Dieks, is an experienced broadcast engineer who worked for Eurosport for eight years. He conceived the idea for the product when noticing the increasing automation only seemed to address the video side of the business.

He saw a large opportunity to use software and audio DSP to revolutionize the automation of the broadcast mix process.

To develop his vision, he brought onboard two key co-founders, Yorgos Karafotias, an AI, data and computer scientist and Jochem de Jong, a DSP, C++ and audio plugin developer. Working closely with a number of key European broadcast companies, the team developed the AutoMix prototype.