Tips and tools for capturing the world in 360 degrees

Broadcast 

With the market for VR headsets expected to take off over the next five years, the pressure is on producers to understand how to tell stories in 360 degrees.

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/techfacils/tips-and-tools-for-capturing-the-world-in-360-degrees/5097703.article?blocktitle=Production-Feature&contentID=1169

“Think spherically,” is the advice from BBC R&D immersive and interactive content section leader Graham Thomas, whose team helped the broadcaster shoot news items, concerts and Strictly Come Dancing in VR.

“Since VR is frameless, there’s no convenient space in which to conceal all the paraphernalia of a shoot,” he says.

There are dozens of recording systems, ranging from the £260 360fly, which captures panoramas from a single lens, to rigs costing more than £100,000 that are aimed at Hollywood productions (see below for eight of the latest VR cameras and rigs).

But much of the difficulty of shooting 360-degree video is in getting the camera geometry right and syncing the frames and exposure.

“Always work back from the end result,” advises Solomon Rogers, founder of Rewind, which produced the Strictly VR experience.

“Resolution of the deliverable is one parameter. After that, you can work out what technical specifications you need to deliver on the required production value.

“Then it’s about the physical shape of the camera/rig. The cost of one over another is no determinant of quality.”

Many of the issues revolve around the process of digitally stitching together multiple videos.

“The best VR DPs are those from a post-production and compositing background,” says Lewis Smithingham, a cinematographer whose VR work includes a Discovery documentary.

“By understanding where the stitching lines might be, you can hide things [like lighting sources] on set and judge whether things can be fixed in post.”

SHOOTING VR: THINGS TO CONSIDER

Rig size

The greater the distance between the lenses, the greater the parallax, which means it will be harder to create a smooth video stitch in post.

In theory, rigs with smaller cameras, like GoPros, will make stitching easier than would be possible with larger cameras because the cameras are positioned more tightly together.

The trade-off is that GoPro sensors are not as high quality, so you have to decide whether sensor performance or post-production is more critical to your production or budget.

Camera alignment

The angle at which cameras are mounted has a bearing on output.

In some instances, stitching will be along the horizontal axis, while with others it will be vertical. Smithingham says that vertical is better for close-up work: “If the camera is positioned in a vertical orientation, I can centre subjects and know that they are not in the middle of a stitching line.”

Deadspots

Some systems claim to capture 360-degree video even though the manner in which the cameras are arrayed means either a top angle, a bottom or both may be missing. Google Odyssey is one of these.

This is not a problem and can even be desirable, because the deadspots can be fixed in post-production by painting plates from other areas of the video.

Resolution

The most common deliverable will be an equirectangular single video fi e, which has all the camera views joined together for editing on a platform like Adobe Premiere.

This will typically be 4K, although this resolution won’t be seen on small mobile phone screens.

For this reason, Smithingham says resolution will not be as important as colour depth or the rig’s basic stability until screen resolutions improve.

Shutter and frame rate

Ensures that the footage is optimally aligned and helps prevent visible stitching in the finished panoramic “A high frame is far better for a more naturalistic feel,” says Rewind’s Rogers, who recommends 50p/60p as minimum.

Power options

Having loads of cabling from the back of your rig will just add to the cost of rotoscoping in post,” advises Smithingham. “Any system with an internal battery pack will be a bonus.”

Use one camera

In a non-live, controlled environment, it can make sense to shoot single camera in one direction, then repeat in a different direction.

Two image sets may be enough to render 360-degree video when using wide-angle lenses. This means you can use larger sensor cameras with less of the stitching headache of multi-cam arrangements.

360 degrees in 3D

There is an argument that shooting 220 degrees rather than the full 360 is sufficient since that field of view mimics our own.

This is particularly true of a live event, where we are least likely to want to look behind us and away from the action.

Some systems shoot 360 in 3D, but achieving quality is not easy.

“Stereo 360 has all the errors of non-stereo VR multiplied by two,” says Rogers.

Monitoring

Not having a viewfinder, or being allowed to stand behind the camera, can be tricky. “How do you understand whether shots are correctly exposed?” asks BBC R&D’s Thomas.

GoPro’s app enables users to stream images from each individual camera. There are also solutions (Rewind, Radiant, NextVR, Nokia) that stitch the output in real-time for on-set monitoring or, potentially, live broadcast.

“The question is why you’d want to monitor VR because there’s no frame,” says Rogers. “The camera shoots everything around it.”

Smithingham agrees: “Trust the DP to do his or her job. After all, that’s what used to happen in the days of classic cinema.”

Google Odyssey

The 16-sensor cylindrical GoPro array is designed to work exclusively with Google’s VR platform, Jump. The design ensures that four of its 16 cameras are focused on one data point at any time so it can triangulate 3D video.

Specific metadata synchronised with the raw video is uploaded to Assembler, Google’s cloud-based processor, to aid stitching conversion.

Films can be published direct to YouTube or sent back to users for further artistic refinements. If you don’t fancy shelling out £10,000 to buy the Odyssey (which is limited to selected partners), Google provides free schematics for DIY 3D printing.

Headcase Cinema Camera

“The world’s highest-quality VR system,” according to maker Headcase, comprises 17 Codex Action Cams each housing a 2-3-inch chip with global shutter to capture 12-bit HD pictures with dynamic range of 11 stops.

The cameras are synchronised with common timecode and metadata to ease digital stitching. It’s available for hire through LA-based Radiant Images.

Radiant also offers a patent-pending rig that sits on a performer’s shoulders and rings 17 cameras around their head.

The Mobius provides 360-degree perspectives where the viewer is able to see the hands, arms and body of the performer. A freefall parachutist and pilot flying a fighter plane have filmed tests wearing it.

Sphericam

On sale from December, this Kickstarter- funded project arrays six 4K imagers with 90-degree wide-angle lenses and a global shutter into a lightweight (400g) Rubix Cube-style mould.

Bespoke stitching software unravels the images into navigable video in real-time. The £1,500 device will output 360 degrees at 60fps 4K resolution and is wi-fi -enabled, so could be used for live streaming.

Jaunt Neo

With the goal of creating high-end or ‘cinematic VR’, Jaunt has eschewed off-the-shelf solutions to develop a rig from scratch.

Detailed specs are still under wraps and Jaunt will only rent it to production partners such as Sky, which has invested more than £1m.

What is known is that Neo houses 16 large sensors capable of low-light performance, therefore reducing the need for artificial light sources.

It has an internal battery to remove cabling and a global shutter mechanism. Video can be shot in 3D using light-field, a technique that produces a stereo effect in post using depth maps.

There are two models: one for indoor events such as sport, the other for outdoors. The output is claimed to be up to 8K resolution per eye.

Freedom 360

Freedom 360 makes a variety of compact rigs for GoPros. Among them, the F360 Broadcaster is optimised for live streaming with a slightly limited 360-degree x 140-degree view.

The F360 Explorer (£440–£1,120) captures 360-degree × 180-degree from six GoPros in a mount which accommodates each camera’s waterproof housing for wet (not underwater) scenarios.

A BBC news team with the broadcaster’s R&D division used the rig to capture footage of a Calais migrant camp.

Nokia Ozo

Shipping at Christmas, Nokia’s design has been backed by Jaunt for production of cinematic VR.

The specifications claim it captures 3D 360-degree video from eight synchronised global shutter sensors along with three-dimensional audio.

Targeting Hollywood producers, the advantage of this system – which is expected to cost more than £70,000 – is its ability to shoot in real-time with software that enables live monitoring.

Nokia says Ozo will render lower resolution video for playback in just a few minutes.

360 Heros 3DH3Pro12H

360Heros is another popular maker of GoPro VR mounts. Some are intended for operation on drones; others can be worn by athletes.

As the mount, which costs £650, is 3D printed from one piece of nylon, it requires no screws.

The 3DH3Pro12H positions 12 GoPros in a horizontal orientation that captures 3D video at 140 degrees and 2D video on the top and bottom at 40 degrees.

This configuration outputs an 8K image and permits a shooting distance of four feet. The 3DH3Pro14H incorporates 14 GoPros to deliver full 360 video but requires a greater distance of six to seven feet from objects to avoid parallax issues.

360Heros also markets file management tool 360CamMan, which helps organise the data into left and right eye sets.

Panorics PX3

The Moscow-founded company’s 360-degree camera shoots spherical video for VR applications and can also live-stream footage over wi-fi.

It promises to capture 360- degree x 180-degree full sphere images at 3,000 x 1,500px resolution from three image sensors.

The company has also developed a holder and optical system that houses three GoPro Hero 4 cameras as an “affordable solution” for shooting spherical video at 5,800 x 2,580px resolution.

Panorics will begin taking orders for the PX3 in December, with the camera due to ship towards the beginning of 2016. At pre-order stage, it is priced at $2,000 (£1,320), rising to around $3,500 (£2,300).

Resistance Is Futile: How Broadcast and Cable Are Embracing IP

StreamingMedia Europe 

Broadcast is moving to an IP-first, software-defined video infrastructure, and in the process reducing costs and creating new editorial opportunities

http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/Resistance-Is-Futile-How-Broadcast-and-Cable-Are-Embracing-IP-107879.aspx

While broadcasters are a long way from junking their digital terrestrial antennas, cable networks, and transponder space, they are embracing the internet to reach consumers. BT TV’s move to launch a 4K channel is predicated on its entrenched broadband infrastructure. HBO’s decision to risk severing established ties with cable by launching HBO Now is part of a tidal wave of OTT offerings from traditional media. U.K. satellite pay-TV giant Sky is another. It runs noncontract VOD service NOW TV and mobile offer Sky Go and uses Elemental software to deliver them.

“OTT is mainstream, no question,” says Joe Inzerillo, CTO of MLBAM, which powers HBO’s streaming service. BAM is being spun-off from Major League Baseball in order to take on more OTT contracts.

Broadcasters are moving to compete with the global scale, local reach, and rapid response of Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Hulu. The transition to IP and software-defined video (SDV) infrastructure will eventually see them move from bricks and mortar to cloud-based content suppliers.

BBC CTO Matthew Postgate is responsible for changing the fabric of the corporation so fundamentally that the vision is for it to become a “datacaster,” not a broadcaster.

“Digital first is about what it feels like to work in a data-driven organization which competes with Netflix or Amazon in content,” Postgate says. “It’s about swapping out the network across all of our bureau to be more IP-centered. It’s about introducing more commodity IT equipment. All the time we are driving down cost and giving editorial more options.”

New Efficiencies and Opportunities

Outsourcing operational processes to private data centers offers broadcasters not just capex and real estate cost savings, but the strategic ability to flex up or down to launch new ventures, respond to short-term demand spikes with pop-up channels (e.g., around major sporting events), and change aspects of channels in real time. The goal is to spin up a channel in hours, not months, as is currently the case.

With processing, storage, and networking infrastructure as pooled resources rather than dedicated independent infrastructures, a software as a service (SaaS) model delivers economies of scale and replaces manual workflow with automation.

Virtualization removes the geographic dependencies that have previously limited video playout. No longer reliant on cost-prohibitive satellite bandwidth, broadcasters can achieve regionalization, localization, and even hyperlocalization of channel content. While internet-based media organizations have incredible opportunities to inject targeted advertising into programming, this is not yet the case for broadcast. That could change with IP.

Instead of storing assets on-prem in proprietary tape archives, a cloud-based approach enables broadcasters to alter content on demand and reformat it far more effectively to compete for VOD and multiscreen delivery.

Current versioning workflows can involve multiple organizations, located in different parts of the world. A software-defined network located in the cloud unites these processes and links ad sales, scheduling, traffic management, and video servers into a single workflow accessed from desktop browsers.

This vision has been in the works for over a decade. Nonlinear editing packages were untethered from turnkey computing hardware in the late ‘90s. The first file-based (XDCAM) camcorders arrived in 2003. The migration from tape to server-based systems continued with the proliferation of file-based workflows that now embrace all aspects of production.

Playout is becoming part of the equation. Tata Communications has just launched a global cloud-based playout service using a new software-only system from PlayBox Technologies called CloudAir. Its design includes the array of traditional on-prem-based hardware functions (ingest, source transcoding, quality control, MAM, production, post-production, subtitling, scheduling, and transmission) and can be operated in automated mode with the option of making schedule alterations or live inserts at any time in response to late-breaking news.

“The CloudAir platform is one of the most exciting new developments in broadcasting since the transition from tape-based to file-based content management and playout,” says Don Ash, managing partner at PlayBox Technologies. “This is a real game changer, with the potential to empower literally thousands of new program streams, quickly, easily, and very affordably.”

IP for transporting and contributing live video is well-established among broadcasters. News departments increasingly use IP to deliver feeds from more places than was possible with costly outside broadcast equipment.

During the U.K.’s May general election, Sky News claimed a Guinness World Record for contributing 138 concurrent live feeds from various constituencies over LiveU’s cloud to the web. (Bear in mind there are 650 parliamentary constituencies, so there’s some way to go.)

The BBC is also ramping its use of IP to contribute feeds from live events such as the Glastonbury Festival, increasing the available coverage. So IP has been part of the media value chain for some time, but not implemented in end-to-end workflows.

“When properly implemented and managed, IP technologies for media distribution match the quality and latency standards required by the broadcasting industry,” says Nicolas Bourdan, senior vice president of marketing at EVS, which makes servers for live production. “Early adopters like those in sports, with the financial means and the need for ultra-fast and responsive live remote production, are paving the way for others. But all-IP workflows are still quite a few years off. It’s just not practical at this point for most broadcasters.”

Roadblocks to Adoption

There are many reasons for this, including doubts about the triple-9s reliability of signals sent over IP, lack of interoperability between vendor systems, and a reluctance to invest until standards for 4K over IP are settled. Many broadcasters have only just migrated to file from tape, and don’t have the funds to make another leap yet. Some argue that the biggest source of inertia is the cultural impact of change.

There’s a general feeling that IP technologies need to mature, or that certain areas are more mature than others. In the former camp are live production workflows from studios or venues, which is solidly based on coaxial copper cables and serial digital interface, though heavyweight broadcast kit vendors, such as Sony and Grass Valley, are launching cameras, vision mixers (switchers), and routers with IP connectors to future-proof investment.

The heart of the matter is whether trust in the deterministic, virtually foolproof signal integrity of SDI can be matched by IP. Will resolutions, frame rates, and audio be synchronized all of the time? And how is control over IP to be managed and monitored by broadcast engineers unschooled in IT?

“IP networks were never intended for video,” says Alexander Sandstrom, strategic product manager at Net Insight. “The brittle, time-sensitive nature of video does not play well with the proven but lossy nature of IP—even less so on shared and unmanaged networks like the internet. The varying delay and constant packet loss of the internet play havoc with every video stream traversing it unprotected.”

Live production is fraught with on-the-fly changes—a late breaking news story with live link via satellite, for instance, or a camera alteration at a track and field event. The risk of on-air black holes or a missing commercial makes for cautious adoption.

Depending on which vendor you believe, real-time IP switching is either not yet possible, or already happening. Snell Advanced Media (formerly Quantel Snell) has reservations. “The control systems don’t [yet] exist,” says head of product marketing Tim Felstead. “Where SDI routers were very reliable with straightforward verification of what was happening, IP systems are more opaque. This creates a lack of confidence.”

Imagine Communications management, on the other hand, talks with certainty and points to perhaps the most high-profile reference site for broadcast over IP in the world just now, that of Disney ABC, which just happens to be based on Imagine products.

“Disney is showing the unlimited possibilities that virtualizing part or all of a network in the cloud can bring to this industry,” says Imagine CEO Charlie Vogt. “A lot of folks don’t realize Disney ABC is doing virtualized playout and automation for live linear programming.” Disney is not, however, producing live event coverage over IP.

Other first movers that are producing live sports from site to studio (though not necessarily from camera to mobile facility) include Pac-12 Networks, which uses T-VIPS and Nevion links to transmit talkback and telemetry to and from sports venues up to 2500km away, and ESPN’s Digital Center 2, which opened November 2014 built around a J2000-based Evertz router.

“The key is to migrate to IP at a [broadcaster’s] own pace and ensure they have the ability to evolve in a hybrid SDI-IP infrastructure,” Vogt says. “Many have made a huge investment in baseband and SDI. We need to help them to migrate to enable their new business models.”

Imagine’s key technology is the Magellan SDN Orchestrator, which provides control of all the company’s hybrid IP and baseband products. “The whole concept of a hybrid architecture is to have everything look and feel like a router because the operator needs to walk up to a control surface and do everything they need to in their day to day business,” says product manager Paul Greene. “They need to select the destination and the source and activate the file. Whether it’s in an IP or baseband domain—whether it’s HD or Ultra HD—the control system abstracts the original function from the underlying technology to make it all very familiar.”

Interoperability Is Key

This speaks to the element of change management that may be making some broadcasters risk-averse. CTOs are wary of ripping out a working SDI infrastructure and replacing it with a technology for which new expertise is required.

Moving into the unknown—or lesser known— is always fraught with challenges, but often the perception outweighs the actual risks,” Bourdan says. “IP requires a different mindset and significantly, a different skill set, from the engineers working with it. Getting over the hump to deploy and train will be the most difficult.”

SMPTE standard 2022-6 goes some way to address this. It is devised to mirror SDI by synching video over IP in a real-time environment, but it does not unlock the full potential of IP by offering seamless switching between AV and metadata streams. SMPTE and others are working on this, but a new standard is not likely until mid-to-late 2016.

Matters become even more complicated when it comes to 4K. While many greenfield facilities or new outside broadcast scanners are being planned with an IP routing core, some companies are holding out until 4K-over-IP standards (such as working with HDR) are agreed upon.

Working in 4K also requires low-latency compression. Due to the different compression schemes available (TICO Alliance, JPEG2000, open source VC2, Sony’s LLVC and, possibly, V-Nova’s Perseus), this too will require a very open approach between vendors.

However, technology is moving extremely quickly. Pipes of 40GbE and 100GbE are already emerging and Imagine is already testing them internally. Costs are high, but Moore’s Law dictates that capacity will expand while costs decrease.

Meanwhile, there are several demonstrations of live IP showcasing cross-vendor solutions to the IP live puzzle. Systems integrator Guardhouse Broadcast has devised a remote production workflow linking solutions from Hitachi, Riedel, and EVS. The EBU has corralled potential rivals to support its Sandbox LiveIP project, implemented an IP studio at Belgium broadcaster VRT. Participants include Axon EVS, Genelec, Grass Valley, Nevion, Trilogy, and Tektronix.

“Interoperability is the key, and adhering to industry standards is important to ensuring success,” says Ewan Johnston, sales director at intercoms vendor Trilogy. “Customers will need to choose between those vendors who provide standards-based systems, but who really still want to deliver proprietary systems, and those who genuinely embrace the standards-based approach and have open systems in their corporate DNA.”

Gartner predicts that the SDV market will top $10 billion by 2018. It concludes that the benefits of software that have pervaded the IT industry are about to have the same impact on the video industry. Elemental Technologies points out that there will be 15 billion to 20 billion IP-connected screens in use in the next 5 years, a factor that CEO Sam Blackman says “exposes the fact that dedicated hardware can no longer keep pace with changing market dynamics.”

Yet the broadcast industry is inherently conservative. It is also a fraction of the size of the IT market. Sony is only ending production of VTRs this year. According to Futuresource Consulting, 13 percent of professionals still use tape.

“Some organizations are still reliant on tape for production, never mind that a lot of their archive still resides on analog tape,” says Adam Fry, deputy VP of Sony Professional, which is on a drive to market the digitization solutions of storage specialist Memnon, which it acquired earlier this year.

Dependent on public money at a time of belt tightening, the BBC is under economic constraint. “We take strategic opportunities to invest as [areas] become end of life,” Postgate says. “I think we’ll have a large amount of IP activity in 5 years, but in reality the transition from SDI will take a number of years.”

At this point, the focus is on the economic and business transformational benefits of IP, and the editorial possibilities have barely been explored. Remote production delivers cost benefits and the possibility to carry more angles on an event, opening up more personalised content and coverage of niche news, sports, and other live events.

There’s a more visionary concept, being led by BBC R&D. Object-based broadcasting deconstructs video and audio into component parts, mixing them in real time and reconstituting them in a way that makes best use of the consumer’s device and their viewing context.

“I think the idea is profound and little understood,” Postgate says. “Once you move to object-based broadcasting delivered as assets to a smart home connected to the internet of things there are huge creative opportunities and fundamental questions about what role a media organization plays.”

BT’s Hybrid SDI to IP Ultra HD Launch

U.K. telco BT launched Europe’s first live Ultra HD channel on Aug. 2, based on a distribution infrastructure several steps ahead of the technology used in production.

The content is mainly live sports transported over the telco’s Infinity branded fibre-optic broadband to U.K. homes that have upgraded to the package and which own a Ultra HD TV. BT paid £897 million (about $1.3 billion) for exclusive 2015-2018 UEFA Champions League rights and is paying £7.6 million (about $11.83 million) every time it airs an English Premier League game.

This distribution network gives BT first mover advantage over its satellite-based pay TV rival Sky, which (at time of writing) has yet to announce a 4K service. Its BT Sport TV channels are available in more than 5.2 million homes.

However, BT refuses to put a figure on the required bitrates suitable to view its Ultra HD channel and the “Ultra HD” branding disguises the its true nature to a degree.

The resolution might be 4K, but other attributes associated with an Ultra HD spec are not currently available. The frame rate is 50p, with tests being made to increase this up to 100p over time. More significantly, the color space is rec.709, not rec.2020 of Ultra HD. It is not carrying High Dynamic Range, although once again tests to incorporate HDR along the camera chain to final display are being conducted by BT’s outside broadcast suppliers.

This is no criticism of BT, which has pioneered a well-received product in a short period of time, and there’s no doubt that the telco-turned-broadcaster will continue to push the bar.

Fact is, to achieve first mover status, it has compromised on production because the technology is not ready. The outside broadcast production to studio is a standard workflow, albeit as a 3G-SDI chain.

“IP live is not yet ready,” BT Sport COO Jamie Hindaugh says. “We are looking at IP and attributes like HDR, and how that integrates into 4K. Our focus is on being trailblazers and staying out in front.”

BT commissioned Timeline TV to build a mobile facility for its 4K production. This includes IP-ready kits such as a Snell Advanced Media Kahuna vision mixer, Snell Advanced Media Sirius router, and Sony 4300 two-thirds-inch systems cameras that carry an IP interface.

A prime economic consideration for all outside broadcasters and their customers is that facilities and workflow need to accommodate HD and 4K production simultaneously.

It’s still unclear how this is achieved editorially. As with 3D broadcasting, 4K live requires fewer camera angles and fewer cuts because of the higher fidelity immersion, so a way must be found of maintaining the production values of multi-camera HD from a largely 4K original. This includes picture stitching two or more 4K cameras and zooming into the image to take HD cut outs or reframing a single 4K image for HD.

Playout is outsourced to Ericsson-owned Red Bee Media and handled in a traditional way. Red Bee CTO Steve Plunkett is an advocate of playout in the cloud, but hasn’t taken Red Bee down that route yet.

“The components of a broadcast publishing chain are evolving towards deployment in the cloud and public cloud environments are also offering more deterministic performance than previously,” he says. “Both seem to be on a path of convergence, which is a good thing. The true broadcast cloud seems to be on the horizon, but its distance is not yet clear.”

This article appears in the November/December 2015 issue of Streaming Media magazine as “Resistance Is Futile.”

FutureSport 2015: Sandbox+ project indicates that IP is coming to live, but challenges remain

Sports Video Group Europe

http://svgeurope.org/blog/headlines/futuresport-2015-sandbox-project-indicates-that-ip-is-coming-to-live-but-challenges-remain/

A straw poll of the audience at SVG Europe’s FutureSport (2 December) to gauge whether anyone was using IP for production now – or even in a few years – drew a blank. Yet IP is coming and while there is understandable reluctance to work with it today, the industry had better get ready, not least because it could be the answer to the demands of greater content produced at reduced cost.

IP live is already here – at least in working proof-of-concept at Belgium public broadcaster VRT. A presentation of its LiveIP studio concept was the basis for the FutureSport discussion.

Felix Poulin, senior project manager, networked media production at EBU – which initiated the project with the VSF and ten vendors under VRT’s Sandbox+ technology acceleration programme – explained that the aim was to build a multi-vendor system, to ensure an SDI-style reliability, and to create new, more flexible workflows.

“There are a lot of standards and protocols for transporting the signal, encapsulating the essence, compressing and controlling IP,” said Poulin “This is not the issue. The issue is how can we achieve interoperability when you have this complexity of options.”

Poulin’s team found a way, creating what he called a starter kit for SDI over IP. Boiled down, this meant using open standards for audio (AES67) SMPTE 2022/6 or uncompressed video and PTP to transport broadcast feeds via an SDN. The next step is to separate the audio from the video and the data, an approach titled TRO-3. This is undergoing interoperability tests with a view to being put before a SMPTE standards body.

“What we want to achieve is a plug and play and data rich environment where data is treated exactly like audio and video,” Poulin said. “All this data can be fed back in realtime to the control room, which is when we can really scale to the full potential of the new technology.”

The project is in three stages. Stage one was single camera, stage two was multi-camera, and stage three, which VRT is about to initiate, is to produce a multi-cam TV show, live streamed and broadcast using IP.

“The mission was to build a real TV studio used by real operational staff, not engineers,” explained Wouter du Cuyper, technology architect for VRT. “We can make a programme in this IP studio. It works. It is multi-vendor and we had great vendor collaboration. It was really a simple set up which we achieved in just three months.”

Futureproofing benefits

Sensing that the sports production community needed convincing of IP’s advantages, several speakers advocated the benefits of IP in futureproofing infrastructure to easily accommodate incoming transmission requirements like 4K, HDR, 8K and so on.

“Higher quality (i.e. 4K resolution images) is not the only factor driving the industry to IP,” said du Cuyper. “We are confronted with a lot of questions from producers and directors about doing more. They want more data to tell stories another way; they want more content to fuel digital and social first video strategies. But we must also be mindful of creating more media on a budget, to do more with less money. Maybe IP is the answer.”

Jeff Strößner, director of global rvents at LiveIP Project collaborator Lawo, also suggested that it was the demand for more content which will propel sports into IP. “We’re moving away from pure linear consumption of broadcast to nonlinear devices where people expect to get more content,” he said. “There needs to be an infrastructure that supports that. The infrastructure needs to be easily scaleable and that is what IT provides us.”

Marcel Koustaal, SVP and GM camera product group, Grass Valley, said the LiveIP Project was important because “instead of talking about IP live we took steps to make things happen”.

He noted that standards will evolve and that hardware, such as cameras, should be able to keep pace since the equipment is programmable to receive updates rather than having fixed standards baked into the chipsets.

Nonetheless, migration to IP will be no big bang with standards the main bugbear. In the meantime SDI and IP solutions will coexist.

“You need a bridge to both worlds so the industry can still use the investments it has made, in kit like production servers, and still connect those to an IP network,” said Johan Vounckx, SVP innovation & technology, EVS.

He tasked the industry with working on joint reference designs and implementations “to prove that IP works,” and to increase the common knowledge about how to deal with IP. “The solutions exist, the elements are there,” he insisted. “We need to know how to combine the elements.”

Standards are necessary to drive interoperability, he argued, since once interoperable you can tap into the power of industry as opposed to purely proprietary designs; “Your customers can genuinely combine best of breed solutions,” he said.

Another step, Vounckx said, is to adopt more COTS equipment, especially for networking. “I know there’s some reluctance to adopting COTS but there are many real case examples showing that COTS kit works.”

Early days

Jan Eveleens, CEO, Axon – another participant in the LiveIP Project – suggested: “We are still in a phase where some big companies are trying to set the market with their proprietary systems and the standardisation is trying to catch up. […] Everyone feels that IP is the direction to go and that SDI and cable will disappear, but it will take time. Standards are a complicated matter in our industry. We have ended up in many areas with dual or triple standards. We have multiple solutions for one single problem which, for a manufacturer, is unsustainable.”

He suggested equipment which had been proven to work in an IP live environment be badged with some certification. “There are very strong examples in the IT world where this has worked well,” he said.

“If we are honest we’d admit that IP technology is not really developed for live broadcast,” added Eveleens. “If you send an email no one really cares if it takes a second too long, but if you go to black in the Olympics for a second or more than a lot of people will suddenly care. The migration will take time. We cannot expect the same quick change we had from analogue to digital to be replicated from digital to network. Manufacturers, broadcast and IT experts need to make this technology useable for live broadcast.”

Education about the whole IP/IT piece also needs beefing up. “From an operations perspective we have to train our broadcast engineer to have more IT knowledge,” noted du Cuyper. “We need GUIs to analyse when something is going wrong and we need a new language to talk about these things.”

Vounckx felt that the IPLive Project had shown that operators don’t know and need not know the difference between the SDI or IP fabric. However, he said, broadcast engineers need to be more IT knowledgeable “and IT engineers who help the industry transition need to become aware of the reality of broadcast.”

Finally, there is security, an issue which Poulin admitted there was insufficient clarity on. “Even if we go in this direction we have to be very careful when connecting core infrastructure to the outside world,” he said. “This is something we really have to keep in the back of our mind otherwise security can become a real nightmare.”

Netflix and YouTube Stream Head to Head In 2016

IBC


2016 is shaping up to be the year of streaming video with titans YouTube and Netflix on collision course. Last month, YouTube launched paid subscription service YouTube Red allowing viewers to watch unlimited ad-free video for U$10-a-month.

http://www.ibc.org/page.cfm/action=library/libID=14/libEntryID=123/listID=2

At the same time, YouTube unveiled a raft of original content and bundled the service with Google Play Music. Most observers have cast this as a direct pitch against streamers like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu.

We won't have long for the battle to commence since Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and YouTube's Chief Business Officer Robert Kyncl are giving separate keynotes at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas early January.

Kyncl has denied that YouTube's move is competitive to Netflix. “Every step that we have taken is 180 completely the opposite of what Netflix is doing,” he said in a statement.

To an extent this is true. YouTube Red original content all feature popular YouTube stars such as PewDiePie and Fine Brothers and therefore have a ready-made youth audience. Netflix original series policy, with shows like ‘Narcos’, entices adult viewers from their satellite and cable subscriptions.

YouTube will produce shows of varying lengths – anywhere from 6 minutes and upward and while it has the cash reserves to buy more exclusive content as Bloomberg points out, it has something Netflix would probably find almost impossible to replicate: millions of young people willing to post free content in the hope of getting famous.

The rub for Google is whether millennials will respond to what is in effect a traditional pay-TV offer. Its secret weapon in this regard could be virtual reality. VR video support has been added to YouTube's Android app, allowing viewers to experience 360-degree content. While Netflix has a VR app, Google also has the Google Cardboard headset and it is investing in VR content creation via the Odyssey rig co-developed with GoPro.

Netflix on the other hand may have become too successful for its own good. Bloomberg notes that investors have become concerned that TV producers may be “jeopardizing long-term prospects for lucrative short-term deals with subscription video on-demand companies like Netflix.”

Analyst Anthony DiClemente of Nomura Securities told The Guardian: “Some of the media executives are looking at Netflix as a digital distributor who has gained too much power. They are thinking, look, maybe we should keep our most valuable content inside the traditional pay TV ecosystem, which is the golden goose.”

Netflix will spend $6 billion next year on content licensing and production, most of which will go back into the coffers of a Disney or a Time Warner. Yet Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes suggested last month that the company may soon start limiting the number of shows it agrees to provide to Netflix and other OTT players. “We are evaluating whether to retain our rights for a longer period of time and forego or delay certain content licensing,” Bewkes said. 

According to Reed Hastings, what Netflix fears most are 'TV Everywhere' strategies that networks use to distribute content to multiple devices. Content producers, networks and studios have so far failed to work out an effective way to license their content to multiple distributors to provide the necessary viewing experience on TV Everywhere apps. 

“We’ve always been most scared of TV Everywhere as the fundamental threat,” Hastings told a New York Times DealBook conference. “That is, you get all of this incredible content that the ecosystem presents, now on demand, for your same $80 a month. And yet the inability of that ecosystem to execute on that, for a variety of reasons, has been troubling.”

“Indeed, rather than platform dominance, YouTube and other new digital video outlets are facing a platform disadvantage,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. “Many distributors and limited high-value content.”

That's why Hastings pointed to a broad, sustained growth of consumer spending on entertainment as proof that “there is not enough TV” content currently available. Great content, he said, will find viewers. 

Waiting in the wings and by all accounts looking to disrupt even this disruptive scene with a radical re-invention of television, is Apple. It is still reportedly working on a new set-top-box and an interface or discovery mechanism that will make good on Apple CEO Tim Cook's vision that the future of TV is apps.

UAE: Moving Beyond A Film Location

IBC

http://www.ibcce.org/page.cfm/action=library/libID=14/libEntryID=428/listID=2

‘Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens’ is the latest in a growing line of blockbusters to film on the Arabian peninsula. ‘Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol’ saw Tom Cruise scale Dubai's Burj Khalifa skyscraper; ‘Furious 7’ drove a car through the Etihad Towers in Abu Dhabi; and the latest in the Star Trek franchise, ‘Star Trek Beyond’, wrapped scenes there last month.

While Hollywood producers are enticed by the desert and futuristic cityscape locations the Emirate authorities are keen to establish the UAE as more than a backdrop. “As we mature as a location we are looking to take TV and film production here to the next stage,” says Paul Baker, Executive Director of film & TV services at twofour54.

The state-backed media group, based in the UAE capital, works with the Abu Dhabi Film Commission to lure international productions to the area with 30% cash-back on feature films, TV shows, commercials and music videos. It also serves as a tax-free zone striving to nurture entertainment content creation in the region and offers a campus bristling with studio and post production facilities. “Our main focus is to encourage TV productions to hub out of Abu Dhabi,” says Baker. “A unique factor is that our 30% rebate covers all TV from entertainment to commercials not just drama.”

After ‘Top Gear’ and CBS drama ‘Bold and Beautiful’ shot episodes there, ‘Iftah Ya Sim Sim’, the Arabic version of ‘Sesame Street’, and Sony Playstation reality show ‘GT Academy’ are basing whole seasons in the facility.

“We are a production destination not just from a financial or location point of view but because of the strong infrastructure and support that allows a production to turn up and make a show here easily,” says Baker. “The broadcast market in the UAE is very mature. We shot 300 hours of Arabic drama here last year. There's been a huge amount of investment so the crew base is good with 500 skilled freelancers and a further 10,000 people on creative and technical training schemes.” 

To access the rebate productions are required to employ UAE nationals as interns. 
Playout facilities are managed by Ericsson, owner of Red Bee Media, which acquired twofour54’s playout business in February. “This deal gives producers the confidence that their information can be moved around by one of the most respected global connectivity companies,” says Baker. 

In Dubai Studio City, which competes with Abu Dhabi for productions, two vast sound stages complete with tanks for underwater filming have been open for a year. ‘MasterChef Arabia’ has been one tenant. U.S post production facility Stargate has a base at Studio City where it helped produce MBC dramas ‘Matrimonio’ and ‘Saraya Abdeen’.

There are plans to increase the capacity of twofour54's existing eleven studios as work relocates from more troubled regional zones like Egypt. “Major light entertainment shows like ‘Arab Idol’ have tended to shoot in Lebanon but we're now starting to engage in more detailed conversations about those shows coming to us,” says Baker. “Ultimately, what we're trying to achieve is to increase the quality and quantity of Arabic content so that these stories reach beyond the region and the diaspora to the wider market.”

The success of Danish drama ‘The Killing’ or South Korean cultural exports like ‘K-Pop’ are held up as a model. “We are also looking for opportunities to work with producers in developing hit international shows,” adds Baker, who suggests that for every $1 of inward spend, the state receives $4.5 returned in economic impact. “On the basis of the amount of productions coming through and the attractiveness of the Emirates as a destination we fully expect to see more and more companies and freelancers set up here.”

It's a chance too to reset the balance from the negative perception of the region in the West. “The quality of Arabic content on the drama side is increasing and as the production values rise so will the attractiveness of content for export beyond the immediate region. It is a very oral society. There are a lot of stories to be told.”

Does Online Have To Mean Short Form?

IBC

http://www.ibc.org/page.cfm/action=library/libID=14/libEntryID=122/listID=3

The world of broadcasting is changing in many ways but one of the old constants that is now in flux is the duration of content. The power of the hour or half hour within the schedule is starting to slip and the worlds of short-form and broadcast are merging. 

“Short form video is intrinsically different to the way TV is viewed,” said Will Saunders, creative director of Digital, BBC at IBC2015. “Those who run TV are not literate enough to understand this.”

TV may have the vast majority of views, Saunders noted, but “the worlds of TV and online are merging” evidenced by the migration of BBC3 into a digital only channel.

Joost Galjart, Head of Strategy for Talpa – which devised ‘The Voice’ – described how the producer embeds short form narrative structures into longer episodes and distributes the former clips digitally. Talpa has 2 million YouTube viewers of its ‘The Voice’ channel. 

“Short content works when it creates tension loops that keep the viewer engaged,” he said.

Last year, broadcaster Channel 4 launched an online channel dedicated to short formats. It invested £1 million this year in over 40 series from 28 independent producers, and expects to invest the same amount in 2016.

“Shorts are about taking creative risks and investing money in the creative community,” said Owain Rowlands, All 4 Channel Manager. “We debut four new series a month, typically of six episodes, and we publish them as a 'box set' to encourage binge viewing behaviour.”

He advised short form producers to get straight to the point. “On Facebook you've got 3 seconds to entice people to click and watch,” he said. “You need to be personal and direct since viewing on mobile devices is a one to one relationship. You need to incentivise people to share it and you need to think about selling it. That means a title and a thumbnail image that tells an audience what it is about. The most successful shorts have an image you'd put on Instagram and a synopsis you can Tweet.”

Vice Media has amassed a $5 billion valuation in part because of the flexibility of publishing video of different lengths. This is cited by Vice executives as a key reason it has been able to produce the style of reporting characteristic of the outlet.

“People want authenticity,” Kevin Sutcliffe, Head of News Programmes Vice EU, told IBC. “News does not break in a newsroom. News breaks on Twitter.”

Vice News, he explains, is not tied to delivering three minute news packages but has a freedom to format stories depending on its editorial strength. "The good thing about being online is you can run video for as long as you want to, you can run it till you get bored of it, you can run it for an hour," Sutcliffe said. “Vice journalists can come back with documentaries of any length, any size, any shape.”

Sutcliffe is currently wrestling with adapting this free form gonzo-style journalism into a 30 minute daily newscast on HBO under the terms of an expanded deal struck with the satellite and cable network earlier this year.

Broadcasters are exploring content of differing lengths and types of storytelling to engage their audiences and remain relevant. At the same time, online only players like Netflix revel in long form drama. Nor is YouTube wedded to bite-size content. YouTube Red, Google's new subscription service, has commissioned original material as short as six minutes as well as at standard broadcast lengths.

The exclusive content premiering on BBC iPlayer also varies in duration from a series of drama shorts from first-time writers and directors to long-form programmes such as Adam Curtis' 2 hours 17 minutes documentary ‘Bitter Lake’.

Curtis has said he made the film for the online platform because “it isn’t restrained by the rigid formats and schedules of network television.”

But Colin Brown, chairman of the Voice of the Listener and Viewer, warned in The Independent that “there’s a fundamental concern that the BBC – because it’s worried about being left behind – may move too aggressively in this direction, leaving behind the traditional viewer who isn’t accustomed to accessing television in this way.”

However, BBC R&D's experimental approach to media production and delivery, called object-based broadcasting, theoretically permits different versions of the same content depending on how much time a viewer or listener has to consume it.

Its Responsive Radio project is a radio documentary that can adjust itself to fit the time users have available to listen. An audience member can decide how long they want the programme to be and then receive that programme. The back-end is far more complex and requires segmenting the programme into multiple elements (for dialogue and music stems, for example) and links them with a series of narrative pathways such that, when played back at different lengths, the result is still as coherent and polished as the original.

There are considerable technical challenges to this, including the storage and broadcasting of individual objects, and the real-time compositing of objects back into a programme on a variety of devices, but the BBC argue that the most interesting challenge is to  help programme makers understand the creative potential of this new approach. It hopes this will “enable programme makers to inform, educate and entertain in ways we can’t yet imagine.”

Drones: Flying Into Action

Broadcast: Drones Directory 2015

From local news items to adrenaline-fuelled action sequences in Hollywood blockbusters, shots captured by drones are cropping up everywhere. While other systems have their benefits – for example, a helicopter can go longer distances, fly at higher altitudes, carry heavier camera payloads, and hover – a professional cinema drone is flexible and can be operated for a fraction of the cost. It also moves in three dimensions, overcoming the limitations of using a crane, dolly, or wire rig, which are fixed. Broadcast spoke with TV, film and commercials producers about their experiences using UAVs.

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/home/digital-editions/drones-directory-2015/5097065.article?blocktitle=Broadcast-digital-specials&contentID=40497

Emmerdale

ITV's drama has used drones on several occasions, including in a driving sequence of a episode to be TXed on 11 November. The UAV was used to reveal the jeopardy of the character's situation.

“The beauty is the flexibility it offers in shot selection,” explains Steve Ross, production manager, ITV Studios. “If the director has a different idea, the drone can cope immediately, whereas using a crane could potentially delay the shoot in having to relocate it. A drone can also offer 360-degree views from any working height, which are hard to imagine with your feet on the ground.”

For example, drones offer the ability to go from a very wide high shot and behind a speeding car, taking the camera down, tracking back above, then turning the camera round to see the driver with the camera now traveling in front of the car.

“This single shot could not be achieved without numerous different set-ups and equipment,” says Ross.

However, when a director begins to see the potential, they may want to use it more and more. “The audience can be shocked or amazed by the impact of a drone shot, but if you use too many it becomes commonplace and loses impact.“

Location choice is important. Ross cites tall overhanging trees, telegraph poles and overhead cables as potential obstacles to negotiate.

“One downside is the number of people who purchase a drone and think they can make a career out of it without any real background or experience in camera work,” he says. “It's not just about flying and seeing what you can see. Framing and composition are just as important 50 metres up.”

Now You See Me 2

Twenty scenes of the horror sequel (on release next June) were captured using the drone as C-camera (alongside main A and B-roll units), including on location in Macao, China and in a tunnel mocked up as a metro station.

“Drones bridge the gap between a crane arm and helicopter,” says NYSM2 producer Kevin De La Noy (Saving Private Ryan, The Dark Knight). “They are so much less intrusive. You don't need to avoid filming camera tracks or cranes so you can be much more creative. Beware that a drone will create a downdraft on loose leaves or dust which may give its presence away.”

While a Technocrane will give you 50 feet of movement at its longest extension, a drone can provide 200 feet in any direction.

“Drones are ideal for high and wide shots but if you need close-ups then go with a normal camera and crane,” advises De La Noy. “UAVs will buffer and be unusable in wind, whereas a helicopter fitted with a gyro-stabilized Wescam even with a IMAX camera filming in 6-8 knots will be rock solid.”

On Now You See Me 2, the drone was paired with a Phantom Flex4K camera which, in the filmmaker's opinion, provided better resolution than a RED to accommodate VFX in post.

Safety considerations included demarcating a zone of restricted access and giving onlookers a chance to remove themselves out of harm's way.

“Safety is vital. If a drone engine dies it become a 5kg meteorite. If it fails with rotors running it becomes a 5kg meteorite with a chainsaw," he says. “Anyone can put a rig into airspace without any safety checks."

De La Noy would like to see a standardisation of UAV rules. “Drones are becoming such an important creative tool for filmmakers who want to base productions out of the UK that there needs to be a policy shift to address exactly what the rules are, who is licensed and who will police the industry.”

The Mosque

The East London Mosque, on the Whitechapel Road, is the largest in Europe but it's also hemmed in by tall buildings restricting conventional camera positions. To give a sense of its geographical location in Tower Hamlets with Canary Wharf as backdrop, filmmaker Robb Leech used a drone during the busy Friday prayers for BBC Two documentary The Mosque (Grace Productions/Vagabond Films).

“It was quite a laborious process with strict filming limitations in built-up areas plus weather conditions to contend with, but we got lucky,” reports Leech. “We got those epic sweeping shots that establish the mosque at the beginning of the film and used more aerial angles as a device for reflection between scenes and to avoid feeling claustrophobic [since most of the film is set inside the building].”

Given the budget Leech would have closed off a street to fly the drone. In the event, UAV filming was only possible if the drone was kept within the space of the roof of the building opposite.

“The open roof of Booth House gave us a buffer zone to fly adjacent to, but not over, the mosque,” says Leech. “We did the same on the roof of the mosque itself, capturing amazing shots of its minarets.”

Filming 150 feet up but keeping within the footprint of the rooftop brought the wind into play. “Any higher than 10 mph winds would have prevented flying and we would not have had the budget to come back another Friday,” says Leech. “We had a 20 minute window to film the prayer-goers exit from the mosque and within that period we flew three times, alternating lenses on the Sony FS7 to give us different framing options.”

Lexus NX Laser Harp

This summer's promo launching a new Lexus featured a musical game in which three cars play a will.i.am tune by hitting 350 projection-mapped motion and audio sensitive laser lights to the right beat.

“Additional vehicles or car-mounted cranes would have interfered with the whole concept of the laser,” explains Max Yeoman, head of production at Mind's Eye Media. “The UAV wouldn't get in the way of the ground camera's line of sight and it wouldn't interfere with the physical light installation on cranes arrayed to one side of the track.”

The shoot was made on a disused Spanish airfield affording ample room to manoeuvre the drone in safety. “Creatively, a UAV gives directors more scope because you can move the camera up, down and sideways,” says Yeoman. “Drones are not better than any other equipment. You have to use the most appropriate tool for the job. With a Russian Arm you can drive alongside the vehicle you are filming, which with a drone is considerably harder and carries more risk.”

A license to fly does not necessarily mean a UAV operation is able to film what you need, advises Yeoman. “You go with reputation, price, how long they've owned the gear and whether they supply cameras or whether the kit needs hiring but first and foremost is a recommendation from another producer, director or crew. If the agency is booked then you have to take a punt on someone else.”

Henley Royal Regatta

Drones are increasingly part of the sports director's armoury. “Any new angles in sports are like gold dust,” says James Abraham, digital strategy director/executive producer, Sunset+Vine. “For the Henley Royal Regatta [live streamed to YouTube] audiences were easily able to see which boat was leading from an aerial tracking shot, and a section of the spectators were revealed as a sporting amphitheatre like Henman Hill, both dramatic views not possible without a drone.”

The UAV repeatedly flew the same section of the river course filming two or three races before returning to ground for a quick battery swap.

“Henley was quite straightforward in that we knew the exact route of the race. With other events you may not know those details beforehand,” says Abraham. “You are also beholden to the weather so that has to be at the back of your mind.”

Operator permissions can differ quite dramatically, he warns. “You need to make sure an operator has got the necessary permissions which in turn should be passed on to your insurance company.”

Sunset+Vine has pre-recorded fly-through beauty sequences for the MCC of test match venues and live UAV material as build-up for the 2015 Aviva Premiership Rugby final from an area outside Twickenham stadium.

“Using RF links means the payload goes up, though sight lines are often easier [than with ground RF cams] since the view is straight up,” says Abraham. “I'm not sure drones are a viable alternative to [wire-slung] Spider-cams for match coverage inside stadia purely from a health and safety perspective. The potential of something going wrong means that no rights holder or producer has got the stomach for that kind of risk.”