DRM takes advantage of Cloud

Cable Satellite International

http://www.csimagazine.com/Digital-Editions/CSIApril2015digitalEdition.pdf

As the video delivery service industry as a whole becomes more software-empowered, the implementation of cloud-centric security management would seem a logical progression. However, the issue is complex and requires some unpicking.

In some ways, the term cloud is a misnomer. Effectively, DRM delivered as a service from a scalable platform allows content owners and providers to shift away from the need to build, maintain and ultimately upgrade the DRM platforms that are essential for the majority of service provision.

“In the past, providers would build their own DRM platforms which would effectively become a software platform needing maintenance and upgrades in line with changes to the underpinning technologies and business evolution,” explains Giorgio Tornielli, VP Product Engineering, Piksel. “The cloud model shifts to a case of integration and customisation with the ongoing platform development and expansion taken care of by the service provider. This approach benefits from economies of scale, specialisation and the ability to provide more ancillary features that would be prohibitively expensive to develop for a single in-house installation.”

Several consumer DRM products (PlayReady, Adobe or Widevine for instance) are already offered as a cloud service. Cloud DRM is also an emerging trend for implementing operator DRM products, and, in particular for smaller operators, suggests NAGRA's Senior Product Marketing Director, Christopher Schouten, as cloud services are an efficient way to optimize their own operations while getting a robust level of service.

Looking further, Schouten sees large operators “starting to run their own cloud infrastructure, implementing a generic IT infrastructure server virtualization approach that brings cost benefits as well as added elasticity.” Such an approach, he informs, “usually relies on a combination of a private cloud environment with some highly scalable online services put on a public cloud or using third party cloud services, for functions such as multi-DRM management.”

So there are two broad reasons why migration of DRM in hosted or cloud environments for pay-TV (VOD) operators is occurring:

1 There are core benefits shared with other cloud technologies

As discussed, it is part of a wholesale shift of the video prep and delivery infrastructure towards pure software subsystems, fundamentally dependent on IP connectivity, which can then be implemented in physical data centres or in cloud CPU resources.

In this case, according to Steve Christian, SVP Marketing, Verimatrix, “DRM technology and business logic does not change.” Some vendors have taken generic implementations of DRM technologies (Verimatrix is one) and are offering a SaaS model of key management based on cloud resources. This, says Christian, “tends to shift the business model for DRM costs rather than the underlying technology.”

2 OTT multiscreen content delivery

Cloud-based DRM is an effort to address subscriber interest in viewing online content that is encrypted in various DRM formats and is made available through multiple online video providers. This results in operators needing to support different content packaging and content protection formats like MPEG-DASH and Common Encryption Scheme (CENC).

As more device functionality is moving to the cloud (user interfaces, DVR storage, preference management etc) vendors sees a greater share of the core rights management logic moving upstream.

“Traditional pay-TV operators have been limited to supporting a single DRM vendor given the operational complexity in rolling out multi-DRM library support into their device footprint,” Sachin Sathaye, VP, Product Strategy and Marketing, ActiveVideo. “The compliance rules associated with supporting DRM vendors further inhibit expanding the DRM solutions to existing devices that lack sophisticated cryptographic features.”

Security and business drawbacks

Deploying DRM in the cloud in a manner that is secure and in agreement with the DRM vendors studio compliance rules, is non-trivial.

“It is very important that DRM infrastructure deployed in the cloud is done so in a manner ensures studio compliance,” stresses Steve Plunkett, CTO, Red Bee Media. “The storage of key material is subject to particular restrictions that must be met to ensure compliance. It also makes more sense to use cloud based DRM when media processing workloads in general are moving into the cloud. Doing so in isolation, while general media processing remains on-premise, can slow down the media transit path and increase workflow execution times.”

Christian emphasises the point: “If the security approach is simply an isolated subsystem divorced from the rest of the deployment architecture, there can be potential barriers to success, including those that arise from managing vital keys and other essential consumption management control information uniformly across multiple delivery formats and device screens.”

The failure to provide a seamless user experience when wanting to transfer viewing mid-stream of Netflix' House of Cards from an iPad to a Samsung smartTV, at best risks alienating the subscriber to another service, at worse pushes them toward pirate sites.

“The real business challenge for operators who wish to target the broadest number of devices is to eliminate service distribution and consumption silos that serve only to frustrate consumers and may nudge them towards alternative sources,” says Christian. “One aspect of this is the need to enable support for multiple native DRM systems on the devices and browsers in use, and to provide the user with a transparent consumption experience.”

The purpose of security goes far beyond the defensive aspects of addressing piracy and theft of service, says Christian, “to that of ultimately enhancing the subscriber’s quality of experience (QoE) while also underpinning the operator’s bottom line.”

Partly for this reason we've not yet seen the wholesale movement of DRM into virtualised environments. “The cloud aspect of DRM is not a process that aggregates large amounts of sensitive customer information, billing or account accessibility,” explains Tornielli. “In essence, it is a streamlining of a well-understood process that has typically resided in-house and can now be consumed as an externalised service due to the maturity of connectivity and virtualised computing technologies.”

André Roy, Head of Security Practice, Farncombe warns that not all cloud-based DRMs are optimised to handle content preparation. “We audit CA (conditional access) systems and can say that there are few cloud-based DRM systems that meet studio content handling requirements for handling unencrypted content. Primarily, having studio quality mezzanine files unencrypted in the cloud would not meet MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) requirements. All encryption would need handling in a physical facility rather than in the cloud.”

One cloud workflow that does meet MPAA requirements is Akamai's. According to Akamai content providers need only upload a single source file to the Akamai Cloud – “which will then facilitate DRM processing in addition to transcoding and stream packaging for optimized, secure delivery to connected devices” the initial reception and encryption is believed to occur in a non-cloud based secure facility.

Verimatrix suggest that Full DRM systems (generally consisting of digital rights to manage, encryption, license management, and a DRM-enabled client) can be deployed in the cloud “very easily as a part of an overall video delivery system” but it doesn't see this as the gold standard right now for pay-TV. “Physical data centre deployment and virtual machine deployments are still quite popular, although interest in cloud implementations is growing,” reports Christian.

Another potential drawback is flexibility. In certain cases, cloud based services will only support a limited set of DRM technologies. “If a particular feature is not available then it is not always possible to just build it yourself and add it to the mix,” reports Tornielli. “The cloud can be defined as a shared multi-tenant environment so the timescale of upgrades, features and fixes are dependent on the diligence of the provider.”

Piksel suggests cloud DRM solutions are a relatively small percentage of deployments (probably less than 1%) “although growing faster than on-premise implementations.”

Only a partial shift of the DRM infrastructure to the cloud is expected from Telekom Innovation Laboratories, the research wing of Deutsche Telekom. “This shift implies the adaptation of the current DRM infrastructure towards more centrally hosted key servers and therefore an overall reduction in the number of key server APIs for the service operator,” says Dr. Oliver Friedrich. “It also implies the adaptation of content servers hosting files encrypted by means of common encryption scheme, which could also simplify the DRM encryption infrastructure.” Therefore, he says, a real move into the cloud is not taking place.

The primary DRM innovation for Friedrich, is driven by the browser and multi-device scenarios and technologies, such as MPEG DASH with CENC and HTML5 EME. The most important factor is the de-coupling of the content from the DRM system itself.

Tackling Fragmentation

Fragmentation of the DRM market coming from the deprecation of the plug-in APIs on the Google Chrome browser and the emergence of a DRM-per-device platform environment has focussed attention on cloud deployment as a solution, argues David Leporini, EVP of Marketing, Products and Security, Viaccess-Orca.

The recent Chrome update is only the beginning of a series of changes to DRM support on web browsers. All browser vendors are moving to embed a specific DRM technology on each of their web platforms. This means that any OTT service viewed on a PC, Mac or the browser of any CE device will need to support multiple DRMs in order to ensure that all viewers can playback the content.

“This is just the start of an industry-wide evolution,” contends Ben Gidley, Director, Multiscreen Solutions, Irdeto. “A single DRM for your OTT service will no longer be sufficient to reach multiple platforms. But as the different DRM technologies are becoming increasingly device- and browser-specific, the impact will not be limited to DRM selection alone.”

As this fragmentation continues, managing multiple DRMs, devices and browsers will become increasingly difficult. “Operators will need to ensure they either have the resources internally or a partner that can provide a multi-DRM platform designed to remove all that complexity,” says Gidley. “This challenge extends beyond just multi-DRM to both the head end and client side.”

Opinion seems divided as to how a cloud solution can solve the issue. “The scenario is now unfolding where each browser vendor is headed towards implementation of a protected media stack implemented around a specific proprietary DRM with no mechanism to expand the default option,” says NAGRA's Christian.

“This seems likely to move the market from a form of streaming fragmentation based around protocols to one divided by proprietary device and browser silos. There’s nothing about cloud implementations of DRM per se that seem to be able help with this self-inflicted wound.”

Some vendors, like Piksel, point to the compatibility and simplification as significant benefits offered by cloud-based DRM. “Each DRM schema has a cost and technical requirement to meet the needs of the addressable audience,” says Tornielli. “These factors are not set in stone and as business evolves, cloud DRM enables organisations to dynamically change which DRM technologies they use, for which devices and services. This simplicity allows DRM to be agnostic to much more critical changes in business strategy.”

Leporini also points to the the reduced complexity afforded by cloud deployments. “The complexity introduced by various content packaging formats, streaming protocols, and DRMs to be supported can be managed using a single platform in a multi-tenant mode of operations,” he says. “In situations requiring real-time on-the-fly packaging of content, such as in certain network PVR and catch-up deployments, content service providers may benefit from the scalability and elasticity of cloud infrastructures.”

For ActiveVideo there are three obstacles that need to be overcome for cloud-based DRM to solve fragmentation: First, the reality that in the pay-TV environment, the DRM is 'baked into' the set-top box or the set-top browsed and cannot be changed; Second, that few IP STBs support multi-DRM, and the increased cost of multi-DRM devices is an impediment to deployment of those devices at scale; and third, not all content owners are able to or willing to invest in multi-DRM solutions.

Recommendations

For an organisation with no existing investment such as a new OTT, SVoD or TVoD entrant, it’s hard not to make the case for cloud based DRM from day one. Little CAPEX, fixed OPEX, rapid time to market and an easy scale up or even down model that reduces risk.

Telekom Innovation Laboratories says it will wait and asses what the strategies of suppliers are. “There are limitations in current implementations,” emphasizes Friedrich. “Moreover, support for interoperability is currently not being offered by most market-leading DRM providers.”

For an organisation with an existing DRM investment, it is a case of examining the numbers, advises Tornielli. “Organisations need to understand how much current DRM actually costs including licences, training, data centre and server costs, upgrades and support. These numbers also need to be considered against the direction of travel of the business. For example, will the service need to support new device types or operating models such as TVoD. Also, ask the same questions of the cloud provider. Get definite costings and pose some ‘what if?’ scenarios to see how alternatives stack up. All clouds are not created equally.”

Vendor strategies

Viaccess-Orca’s approach consists of solving the DRM fragmentation issue facing the industry through its multi-DRM solution called Connected Sentinel, which is available as a hosted service and also integrated with cloud infrastructures for DRM management and content preparation.

ActiveVideo’s CloudTV StreamCast is described as a “comprehensive solution for delivery of online video to any existing pay-TV STB”. It addresses - in the cloud and in real time -- Content Experience and Content Delivery, in addition to Content Protection. “These are the three key technological hurdles pay-TV operators face in bringing online video to STBs at scale,” says Sathaye.

Verimatrix offers cloud-based instances of its Video Content Authority System (VCAS) to help facilitate integration for virtual end-to-end solutions. “While yesterday’s legacy systems tended to have large, proprietary hardware components —making it complex and cumbersome to integrate multiple solutions — software- and IP-based components can better support a cloud-based approach that relies on virtual resources,” says Christian. Verimatrix MultiRights also brings CE devices with embedded, non-Verimatrix clients under the VCAS security umbrella.

Irdeto's service maps a central list of operator owned content with the users entitlements and then maps that to each DRM according to the business rules for each content play. It does this for Liberty Global, Australia's Foxtel and ITV among others.

NAGRA says its MediaLive Services Platform, featuring multi-DRM capabilities and available as a cloud service, provides an efficient architecture for delivering a complete end-to-end content preparation and delivery solution. It includes secure player apps for multiple consumer devices that leverage studio-approved NAGRA anyCAST PRM. MediaLive can also deliver specific vertical functions, such as multi-DRM support and related workflow capabilities, to be integrated into an existing operator platform (that can be in-house or 'cloudified'). 

Go fly zone

Broadcast 

Lighter airframes, heavier payloads and longer flight-times are on the wish-lists of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) filming practitioners but what is concentrating minds more than these incremental advances are collision avoidance and object tracking systems.

To some there is a clear need for a greater level of protection to avoid in-air accidents as the UK's skies fill with drone aviation hobbyists. To others, the automated in-flight detection and avoidance systems in development across the industry, will add fuel to an inevitable injurious, even fatal, disaster.

This is a serious issue blamed in part on a lax regulatory system that has not kept pace with skyrocketing UAV use propelled by the plummeting costs of components and the ease of buying remote controlled aircraft online.

Charges are being brought against a man who allegedly flew a drone over landmarks including the Houses of Parliament and several football stadiums without proper monitoring and at risk of collision to buildings.

“The way licences are issued there is no requirement to have any technical knowledge of how drones operate,” says Jamie Stevens, owner Helicam Media and qualified drone pilot. “There is no requirement to fly them manually without the aid of GPS. If something were to go wrong and the GPS was lost would they be able to fly it properly?”

The current standard permission from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) allow the UAV to be no closer than 50 metres away from any structure or person that 'isn't under your control'. Some UAV film companies can achieve special exemptions in congested areas, based around specific planning and specific safety redundancies.

Where many UAV pros tend to design and build their flying machines from scratch – brushless electric engines, propellers, airframes – many more enthusiasts and, it's claimed, commercial start-ups, are using off-the-shelf drones.

“It's like taking a weapon out of a box hoping it will operate and if there are any issues they'll just contact the manufacturer,” says Stevens. “When I am flying something over people's heads, I want to know exactly how it was put together, not hoping it is assembled right.”

He floats the idea that drones be fitted with registration barcodes so that ground-based police or air traffic officials could scan and check them using lasers.

“In the future we see a shift to airworthiness testing much the same as commercial aircraft,” says Batcam co-founder Jon Hurndall. “Only then, will regulation on distances be eased as the technology is proven and trusted.”

Several companies are developing auto-follow tracking systems. The $1m Kickstarter-funded Hexo+ claims to require no pilot or cameraman and is controlled via a 3D model of the camera’s point of view on a smartphone app. There is no avoidance system included in the first version either, although Hexo+ states that it is working on it.

“The more automated a protection system the more that can go wrong,” says Toby Pocock, MD at Skyvantage and CAA licensed drone pilot. “Our license or 'permission for aerial work' is based on a human operator. Trust me, when you put all your faith into some automated system it will almost certainly let you down.”

Other auto-follow systems include AirDog from Helico Aerospace Industries, a $500,000 Kickstarter project which is controlled by a wrist-worn wireless module at a range up to 1000 feet (300m). It is testing LIDARs, which use light sensors, ultrasonic sonars and microwave radar for its collision avoidance system.

It is also investigating how to keep its gyroscopes and accelerometers at a constant temperature because of issues caused by changing temperatures (such as filming snowboarders in sub zero cold) which it admits causes the sensors to drift and the drone to crash immediately after takeoff.

“This [type of technology] is not something we would trust or use, certainly until it was tested in many different locations and environments,” says Pocock.
Batcam's five year business plan incorporates various assumptions about how the UAV market and regulation will progress. “If, for example, collision avoidance is brought to a level where it is trustworthy, then we would expect to see an easing on distances to the public,” says Hurndall. “Imagine an overhead UAV over a football match. Even if we were flying low to the pitch, the UAV could be nimble enough to dodge a ball being kicked toward it. It's a really exciting prospect and will bring a new dimension to sports broadcasting.”

Most R&D is going into making systems lighter. Airframes are already composed of carbon fibre so the greater gains can be made by reducing the weight of batteries – which increase flight times. On average, drones flight times range between 7-15 minutes and limited battery life make the vehicles problematic for live broadcast even where regulations permit.

“For every pound we add, the less time we can fly. Better batteries is probably going to be the next breakthrough,” said Tom Hallman, president of US UAV specialist Pictorvision, at the Hollywood Professional Alliance last month last month.

CAA rules restrict operation of drones above 7kg 'without permission' over central London. “Staying under that magic 7kg weight helps speed up planning for jobs and reduces your acceptable distance from the public,” says Hurndall.

Similarly, the weight and size of onboard recorders limits flight time. “You want something that is light enough not to affect flight times significantly and small enough to mount directly onto the gimbal,” Hurndall explains. “We either record internally in the camera, or use the Atomos Shogun, which is particularly great with the Panasonic GH4 as you get an 4K 10bit output.”

Since sports broadcasters want unprecedented camera shots which follow competitors it is only a matter of time before UAVs are as much a fixture of OBs as the wire-hung spider-cams. In the US, Fox Sports has tested drones at several events including Supercross where riders were filmed in an empty stadium.

In Qatar, UAVs have been used for several years to film camel races. Dutch UAV specialist Airfilms flies drones above the track sending HD signals by RF to a car driving alongside and from there back to an OB van.

The gimball is arguably the most essential piece of drone filmmaking, stabilising the camera against the movement of the UAV. “Without these it is simply not possible to acquire super stable video,” says Pocock. “Vibrations and unwanted movement in the camera will seriously affect the shot.” 

Early models were servo operated which, according to Dean Wynton, director and UAV pilot at Aerosight, meant “a lag in the response time and were not as smooth as brushless motors.” 

Newer gimbals are packed with accelerometers and gyroscopes making “a massive difference to stability” says Wynton.

The Z15 Zenmuse, for example, is claimed by manufacturer DJI to achieve sub-pixel stabilisation. It costs £2000, a hefty price tag in the done market but nothing compared to a full-scale helicopter gimbal which costs north of £200k.

While AirDog, Hexo+ and others from UAV brand Parrot are aimed at the consumer and action sports market their designs for autonomous one-person control are impacting professional development.

David Bradley, MD at Bradley Engineering, says the firm is “not actively marketing” its Gekko remote control gimbal because the industry is dominated by lower-spec technology.

“It's a pro piece of gear for a specialist camera-operator with PTZ, focus controls and colour balance which operates on a professional radio frequency rather than on cluttered Wi-Fi bands,” he says. “Until the market matures I don't think many people would understand it.

“Auto technology is great for certain applications but the first thing any cinematographer would do is switch all the automatic functions off because they want to get a unique shot with a unique look,” he adds. 

Inexpensive pocket cameras like GoPro Hero are the go-to imagers for aerial photography but rival camera manufacturers have wised up to the demand. Arri  became the first cinema-class camera manufacturer to adapt its models for UAV use with the Alexa Mini, a version of bigger brother Alexa with a 35mm sized sensor in a compact carbon-fibre housing.

“Arri is the first step camera manufacturer to take the UAV market seriously,” says Hurndall. “Size, weight and video quality are obviously tradeoffs but critical elements for any manufacturer to consider.”

DJI's Inspire drone comes with a camera capable of recording 4K at 30fps. The gimbal can also be dis-mounted from the vehicle and used as a handheld mount (as can Bradley's Gekko).

Hurndall reveals Batcam is currently developing a system that it hopes “will revolutionise” live aerial filming. “It will be a complete system ready for professional broadcast,” he says.

UHD takes to the air

Broadcast

Manufacturers are competing to be the first to offer workable UHD RF camera links, but the technology is still at least a year away from the market.

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/techfacils/uhd-takes-to-the-air/5086243.article?blocktitle=Production-Feature&contentID=1169

RF cameras are a staple of live broadcasts, with wireless positions offering producers flexibility, portability and unusual angles.

The transmission units for HD 1080i or 1080p signals are small and light enough not to over-burden handheld camera operators, and the technology has advanced to open up new possibilities for live streaming from body-worn cameras.

For example, the Solo 8 transmitter designed by RF specialist Cobham and used with the NanoVue HD receiver has been fi tted on everything from surfboards to drones, and was used by ESPN as a headmounted ‘RefCam’ to follow the gaze of basket ball referees.

Combined with a Sony Action Cam and strapped to the back of an eagle (combined weight 300g), it also captured the bird’s two-minute flight from the top of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa for animal welfare organisation Freedom Conservation.

Broadcast RF encased the unit with a miniature camera onto bikes for live-streamed rear-view shots during the recent UCI Track Cycling World Championships.

Fellow links specialist Vislink has teamed up with GoPro to perform a similar feat for broadcasters wanting to incorporate footage from athlete-worn or gearmounted Hero 4 cameras into live broadcast. To date, GoPro footage has been restricted to a post-production workflow with memory cards shuttled to an OB truck for replay.

Links are all about the quality of compression, which reduces the artefacts in the picture crunching data down, sending it over a radio frequency and decoding back to its original format at a receiver.

Technical challenge

The algorithms used for broadcast quality HD RF links have advanced to less than one second delay and can be used uncompressed at 1080p 60 for monitoring.

But the leap to UHD and 4K is a massive technical challenge.

With four times the resolution of 1080p, UHD results in four times the amount of data, quadrupling the amount of bandwidth required to transmit compared with HD.

“We can send 4K wirelessly now over some type of IP link but there will be a lot of latency in it, which is unworkable for situations like live sport,” says Scott Walker, co-founder of Boxx TV.

“Most people are looking for one frame or less delay.”

One answer lies in better compression techniques.

Just as the industry has moved from MPEG2 to MPEG- 4/H.264 in recent years, the goalposts are shifting towards H.265.

“Using H.265, you can send the same amount of data down half the bandwidth, or twice the amount of data down the same bandwidth,” says Ali Zarkesh, vice-president of product management at Vislink.

The technology is still in its infancy though, not least because chipsets need to be built fast enough to deal with the far higher throughput of data.

Broadcasters wanting to launch UHD sports services with RF options will have to find workarounds in the interim.

According to Cobham head of broadcast sales JP Delport, one route is to transmit 4 x 1080p video streams simultaneously on different frequencies and stitch the signals together on the receive end for a UHD output.

“This would require four transmitters on the back of a camera, which will add significant weight and could cause cameras to unbalance - not to mention Steadicam ops to moan,” he says.

Another option is to use available links and transport 3G at 1080p 60 then ‘up-res’ the signal.

But the technical problems are far from being solved. Nonetheless, several manufacturers are expected to show rack-mounted 4K UHD RF units at NAB.

HD RF developments at NAB

Cobham says it is not developing an H.265 solution but is intent on making its H.264 encoders even better.

The vendor is, however, showing a prototype compact software defined radio (SDR), with a pair of connectors configurable as a dual HD encoder, dual HD transmitter or one receiver, one transmitter.

As with other areas of the broadcast equipment industry, RF links are moving away from black boxes into IP and software.

“It will be the first SDR in this form factor and opens up a massive market opportunity,” says Delport.

I-Movix is extending the capabilities of its X10 UHD RF Ultra Motion system with wireless shooting.

While the X10 is a 4Kcapable camera, the RF slow-motion images up to 2,000 frames a second are only supported in 1080i.

Meanwhile, Boxx is introducing Atom, a miniature version of its Meridian video assist unit offering 1080p 60 transport at zero delay.

Boxx says it is so light it could be velcroed to the side of a camera.

Vislink claims to have the first 4K-capable H.265 compact lightweight encoder.

The DV5300 will handle H.265 encoded 4K and one channel of H.265 1080p, plus a channel of H.264.

“We are the first to provide all of this capability for contribution encoding,” says Zarkesh. “It can be used for SNG, ENG and IP networks.”

Using Vislink’s modular design, the H.265 encoder may eventually be used in camera back applications, but its initial iteration will be shelf-mounted or housed in a rack.

“We believe the market will be moving towards small H.265-capable camera back systems with low delay over the next 12 months,” says Zarkesh.

Laurent Renard, chief executive of slo-motion camera systems developer I-Movix, thinks the solution may work for 4K UHD golf coverage. “Typically, there is someone carrying a pole with the transmitter on next to the camera so weight is less of an issue,” he says.

Race to be first

Current RF links are either routed over the standard DVB-T 8Mhz radio channel or over the licence-exempt 5.1-5.9 GHz band used for public wi-fi.

Vislink, which develops products for licenced frequencies, claims that efficiency gains can be made by deploying its LMST (Link Modulation Scheme for Terrestrial) RF microwave links.

The second-generation DVB-T2 will also offer a higher data rate than DVB-T or a more robust signal for microwave links.

BBC R&D is reportedly developing a system that unites two 8Mhz carriers to double the bandwidth for a 4K link using DVB standards.

Walker believes licence-exempt developers (like Boxx and Cobham) are more likely to provide a wireless 4K solution first because wi-fi doesn’t have the same bandwidth limitations as licenced frequencies.

“With the new 802.11 ac [IEEE protocol] you can go to 80Mb/s bandwidth and transport 4K relatively easily,” he says.

“But it’s a double-edged sword, since you would need to operate in environments where you have control of the spectrum.”

This can include some studios and sports stadia, provided the concrete structure blocks competing spectrum from outside and the broadcaster works closely with the venue’s IT department to avoid congestion from localised wi-fi.

“The technical challenge is to reduce the heat of the package so it doesn’t impact the camera, and to lower the power consumption suitable for battery operation,” says Walker.

“The other issue is latency. Using H.265 requires an enormously complicated algorithm to compress and decompress the signal, which adds latency, making it difficult to achieve sub a couple of frames.

If you have more than two frames delay, the picture is as good as useless in a live sport or ENG application.”

Like Walker, Jon Landman, vice-president of sales at Teradek, believes it will be at least another year before UHD wireless units hit the shelves.

“The question is, is it better to have 4K resolution at such a low bitrate, like 1Mbp/s, that it will look like SD? Or should you aim to stay true to the concept of advancing picture quality and wait until we have the technology that delivers on the promise of 4K?” he says.

Making space for light entertainment

Broadcast 

Shiny-floor formats haven’t been squeezed out by high-end drama and even quiz show productions are demanding larger, higher-spec spaces. http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/features/making-space-for-light-entertainment/5086218.article?blocktitle=Production-Feature&contentID=1169

Recent reports about UK studios have concentrated on the capacity squeeze resulting from tax break-lured feature films and TV productions.

The bedrock of the TV studio sector, however, remains light entertainment, for which demand is still healthy and space ample. “A few years ago, some people were forecasting the demise of traditional studio shows and claiming that the audience would be diverting to drama or event programming rather than shiny-floor formats,” says David Conway, managing director of BBC Studios and Post Production (BBC S&PP).

But since BBC S&PP relocated to Elstree in 2013, with BBC Television Centre (TVC) under scaffold, it has hosted 50 titles, ranging from Tumble and Strictly Come Dancing (back for 2015) to panel and quiz shows for ITV (The Chase, Celebrity Juice, Your Face Sounds Familiar) and the BBC (Pointless, Never Mind The Buzzcocks). “The sector is still vibrant and we can even argue there’s been a small level of growth,” says Conway.

Incidentally, Elstree Studio D is the BBC’s base on election night. It will be part of a complex operation, with multiple feeds into the gallery mixed with the studio’s own 16-camera coverage and augmented reality graphics.

The shuttering of Teddington Studios in December, the sale of Wimbledon to sole tenant Marjan Television Network, the closure of Riverside Studios and the redevelopment of TVC until 2017 has increased business for those left standing.

“Closures in the London area have definitely helped us,” confirms Julia Hardwell, studio resources manager of Maidstone Studios. With space at a premium, Maidstone’s 12,000 sq ft studio 5 is coveted. Its biggest light entertainment shows are Later… With Jools Holland and Take Me Out, both of which require extra dressing room, green room and storage space.

Meanwhile, Fountain Studios is home to 12 Yard’s Big Star’s Little Star, the final of ITV Studios’ variety show Get Your Act Together, Hungry Bear Media’s Play To The Whistle and the live finals of Britain’s Got Talent and The X Factor.

“Rather than risk not having space at all, and conscious of possible studio shortage, producers are pencilling in larger chunks of time,” says managing director Mariana Spater. “It’s very much business as usual. We’re fighting as hard for budgets as we always have, and demand has certainly not dropped.”

Drama vs entertainment

While a steady stream of drama (including E!’s The Royals), commercial and promo clients enter 3 Mills Studios in London’s East End, studio executive Tom Avison says increasing enquiries about light entertainment are giving him something of a quandary.

The studio has housed shows such as Channel 4’s Million Pound Drop and is currently home to BBC1’s MasterChef, but the studio does not have a bespoke TV space. “It’s wrong to suggest that studio occupancy in the UK is full,” remarks Avison.

“We have occupancy running until the end of the year, but a lot of those are conversations rather than confirmations with drama productions. That’s why we’re looking at the feasibility of adapting one of our stages for dedicated TV entertainment or continuing to bank on drama.”

The dry-hire facility would need to install lighting rigs and improve the flooring, air conditioning and access points in at least one of its 11 stages, and convert adjacent spaces into control galleries, to attract regular light entertainment business.

Outside the capital, shiny-floor, quiz and panel shows are trickier for studios to attract, mainly because of the reticence of London-based presenters to travel far from home.

A notable exception is Deal Or No Deal, which has been housed at Bristol’s The Bottle Yard Studios since 2013. Endemol-owned Remarkable records up to four times a day for C4, from production facilities provided by BBC S&PP. Series post production, managed by The Farm, is also performed at the Yard.

“It’s a year-on-year commission and there’s no guarantee of another one,” says site director Fiona Francombe. “We do have a quiet concern about what may come in its place when the run finishes. We’ve proved we can manage a high-profile audience show, but we tend to get overlooked for light entertainment purely because of our location.”

Fortunately, the studio is about to cater for its fi rst live-action children’s production and is hopeful of rebookings for further series of BBC1’s Poldark, ABC’s Galavant and Sky comedy drama Trollied.

Nor does talent seem shy of travelling to Salford, where Dock 10 hosts 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown and all bar the last three shows of The Voice UK (which move to Elstree). “We are blessed with winning a number of commissions from ITV Studios [Judge Rinder, The Jeremy Kyle Show, Countdown, University Challenge],” says studio head Andy Waters.

Size matters

There is further evidence of light entertainment productions upscaling accommodation. The next series of Sky 1’s A League Of Their Own is being upsized to suit a larger audience at Elstree’s George Lucas stage – at 15,000 sq ft, it is the biggest such environment in Europe, according to BBC S&PP.

These shows are using the space in much the same way as a drama would, with preference for easy access to large floor space, multiple dressing rooms and copious car parking (always a bonus that studios like to flag).

The Sharp Project in Manchester, for example, was built for drama and is housing Sky’s Mount Pleasant, BBC Children’s World’s End, ITV Studios’ Danny Baker autobiography Cradle To Grave and BBC transgender sitcom Boy Meets Girl, but has also enticed Dragons’ Den to relocate from Dock 10.

The tenth series of the BBC2 show has taken over 10,000 sq ft studio 3. “The producers wanted a slightly larger and enhanced stage, dressing rooms, catering and a standing set in another area of Sharp,” says founder and chief executive Sue Woodward.

Studios keep on top of these service extras but the trick to gaining return clients is to offer what Spater calls the “wow factor”, and what Elstree managing director Roger Morris says is “a facility team who work with productions, rather than against them”. At Elstree, BBC S&PP has focused on speeding up turnaround times.

That includes 200 monopoles to facilitate a more fl exible lighting arrangement. “It’s all to do with increasing our ability to turn programmes around to accommodate more productions in the existing footprint,” explains Conway.

Future-facing 4K upgrades are on the distant horizon for most studios. For those catering for live production, it means a commitment to new vision mixing and signal routing. While 4K studio cameras from the likes of For-A or Ikegami can be hired in, some studios have committed to purchase.

Trickbox TV, whose main clients are news broadcasters like the BBC and Canada’s CBC, is testing 4K waters with a Panasonic GH4 as a prelude to investment in 4K studio cameras.

It is too early for equipment to be specified for TVC and Riverside, but both facilities would be missing a trick were they not outfitted with 4K infrastructure on reopening.

Dock 10 will soon have more than 100 Avid AirSpeeds for recording camera channels into its fi le-based facility, while Maidstone has made recent investments in sound and lighting control gear for studio 5, as well as extending dressing room capacity in studio 2, home of ITV’s Catchphrase.

Celebro Media Studios near Oxford Street claimed to be the nation’s fi rst full 4K facility on launch last August.

The 2,000 sq ft studio’s workflow includes Blackmagic Design Studio Cameras and an Atem vision mixer, plus a mix of copper, fibre-optic and cat6 cables for flexible routing. “It’s about recognising that 4K is coming and producers will need studios to be ready,” says Celebro chief executive Wesley Dodd.

The site, used by London Live and Al Jazeera, offers a highly automated set-up, with three Mr Moco (Mark Roberts Motion Control) robotic cameras, automated servers and graphics playout.

“It is for broadcasters wanting to make a live programme with fewer personnel in a space that typically requires 20 people to operate it,” says Dodd. “There’s not much point in having a camera-op moving between a wide and a close-up [shot] when those moves can be programmed.”

Dock 10 may trial 4K cameras for similar cost savings. “The idea is to shoot a panel show with fewer cameras and build the show in post. You would use shots that are of such high resolution that a wide selection of ISOs [isolated position] could be reframed in HD,” explains Waters. “While 4K may not yet be needed for quiz shows, such a 4K workflow could become a more efficient method of production.”

Kid's TV: changing landscape

Broadcast

Pact is warning of a crisis in kids’ TV due to a lack of broadcaster investment. Could live-action tax credits or quotas be the answer?

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/kids-tv-changing-landscape/5085998.article?blocktitle=Features&contentID=43659

The children’s TV landscape is in a state of flux. Pact has called the chronic lack of UK broadcaster investment in the sector “a crisis” that the incoming tax relief for live-action is unlikely to ameliorate. On the other hand, the prospect of tax incentives has already improved the hand of indies in piecing together co-production finance, while the ambitions of Amazon and Netflix could deliver new commissioning lifelines. Billy Macqueen, cofounder of Darrall Macqueen, says: “No one knows which way the domestic market is going to go, but we are pretty excited by the changes happening.”

A report by Pact and The Ragdoll Foundation, submitted as part of Ofcom’s PSB Review, highlights dramatic declines in spend on kids’ content.

The volume of UK kids’ original content on the PSB channels has fallen by 68% since the 2003 Communications Act, while spend is down 95%. The BBC cut first-run hours by 59% between 2003 and 2013. Furthermore, hours on the commercial PSB channels, excluding digital spin-offs, fell by 87%. The result, the report argues, is a sector on the brink of collapse.

“There’s been a huge increase in the amount of deficit funding that indies are expected to find, which has grown from 20-30% four years ago to 60-80% now,” says Macqueen. “The bargaining chip is how much of your IP you give away.”

Lime Pictures joint managing director Kate Little adds: “The status quo is not far off market failure. If you don’t invest in children’s live-action content, and if kids are used to watching oversees imports or movies, where is your drama audience of tomorrow?”

Officially Amazing: CBBC

With CBeebies and CBBC the only significant domestic option open to indies, getting a live-action project over the tax credit funding threshold has meant complex co-pro deals, often taking filming into territories with financial inducements, such as Canada and Ireland. Kindle Entertainment’s magical drama Jamillah And Aladdin, for example, is a BBC Children’s commission majority-financed by Canadian production group Mediabiz and shot in South Africa.

The government’s latest announcement that the required threshold for spend in the UK will be reduced from 25% of the budget to 10% is set to make the territory more attractive to international co-producers.

“We will bring more finance to the table, which should mean we keep more equity rather than cede to Canada. And it should enable us to shoot more in the UK,” says Valerie Ames, director of Kindle Entertainment.

“After various costs are netted off, the tax break delivers around 15-20% of production budgets, which is fantastic,” says Little. “However, 80-85% of project costs will still need to be found. It will really help producers to build financing plans for programmes and may reduce the piece of the overall pie that UK broadcasters will have to fund.”

One problem that won’t go away is the cost of production, says Lion TV managing director Richard Bradley.

“The unforeseen consequence is that prices for studios, facilities and crew have gone up and it’s much harder to find availability,” he says.

“It’s a myth that it’s cheaper to make drama with kids than adults,” agrees Little. “Your ability to work a schedule with the same degree of freedom is inevitably hampered by restrictions on working hours for child performers.”

Business opportunities
The rebate is already credited with rubber- stamping series two of Topsy And Tim (Darrall Macqueen for CBeebies); a third run of Hank Zipzer (Kindle for CBBC); 20-part teen drama Evermoor Chronicles (Lime for Disney); Offi cially Amazing (Lion TV for CBBC) and interactive comedy drama The Secret Life Of Boys (The Foundation for CBBC).

“Since the autumn statement, we’ve received calls from co-producers expressing interest in shooting here as opposed to Canada, so there are signs it will bring in business,” says Michael Carrington, chief executive of Zodiak Kids’ The Foundation. “I can’t see it transforming the indie sector though. We’re not seeing the number of commissions increase overall, and nor are the number of slots from domestic broadcasters changing.”

Pact has called for regulatory changes to reverse the situation. “We need to move away from the BBC being the monopoly buyer of children’s content,” argues Pact senior policy consultant Rosina Robson. “We hope the credits will incentivise ITV and Channel 4 to do more, and for other broadcasters to invest more in the UK. But we think the end game could be quotas on children’s content for PSBs if current levels of investment don’t change.”

Topsy And Tim: CBeebies

Variously sceptical and reticent about publicly supporting Pact’s call for quotas, the indies Broadcast contacted are united in feeling that measures are needed to reset the balance.

“If we want to have a robust children’s industry, it needs something of a different order of magnitude,” says Bradley. “I am not sure if quotas are the answer, but we need a strong commitment from broadcasters to end the industry’s perpetual state of struggle to fund live-action programming.”

“We need an array of weaponry to make this work,” says Anna Home, chair of the Children’s Media Foundation, which wants the industry to look at contestable funding by lottery cash.

According to Greg Childs, editorial director of the Children’s Media Conference, the tax breaks are an acknowledgement by the government of the need for action. “The amount the Treasury gains from kids’ tax breaks will be nothing compared with the benefit from animation tax breaks.”

Pact estimates that the new rebate could generate up to £3m per year for the Exchequer (£52m is estimated to have been generated as a result of animation credits last year).

Pact’s report also highlighted that since 2004, spending across children’s channels owned by Disney, Turner and Viacom has fallen by around 40%. However, it did not register the activities of new market entrants seeking to bulk up their kids’ portfolios.

Attendees left Miami’s Kidscreen Summit in February optimistic that Netflix and Amazon are committed to an original children’s slate and that UK content could in time join its current US-centric slate.

After renewing 2014 seasons of Gortimer Gibbon’s Life On Normal Street and Annedroids from Sinking Ship Entertainment, Amazon Studios’ 2015 pilots include Sigmund And The Sea Monsters and Just Add Magic.

Netflix live-action orders include Some Assembly Required from Canada’s Thunderbird Films. Bottersnikes & Gumbles, a CG animation due in 2016, is a first co-pro between Netflix , CBBC and Seven Network Australia.

Life On Normal Street: Amazon

“Children’s producers have historically been very creative about where they look for money, and Amazon and Netflix could offer a paradigm shift beyond broadcasters,” says Bradley. “They want children’s content and are prepared to pay for it.”

With budgets reportedly more than £300,000 per half hour of pre-school material and £600,000-plus for under-15s programming (the UK norm is £160,000-200,000 per half hour), indies are excited but wary.

“The catch is that they want premiere or exclusive rights to the UK, which puts pressure on CBeebies and CITV,” notes Macqueen.

“Like any new platform, they have to invest up front to attract the right ideas and talent. But I don’t think that level of investment is sustainable,” says Carrington.

Indies are also benefiting by being released from contracts preventing sale of programming to VoD within five years. “Broadcasters have recognised VoD as a main revenue stream for producers, so we can release properties to the likes of Netflix, Hulu and Amazon in the second window after a year,” says founder of Serious Lunch Genevieve Dexter.

And then there’s YouTube, which already accounts for 20% of kids’ viewing, according to Ofcom. The platform is now ramping up its kids credentials with a dedicated app.

“It will take five years for the market to mature, so anybody who wants to start a specialist kids’ indie in the UK will have a tough time without decent financial backing or a track record in financing co-productions,” says Macqueen. “Even then, they may get overtaken by producers with a different business model talking directly to the child audience by developing for YouTube.”