The Panasonic FZ80: 4K for under $400

Red Shark News

It’s not all GH5. Anyone in the market for a 4K stills photo and 4K video point and shoot camera with telephoto capabilities should perhaps take a close look at the Panasonic Lumix FZ80 —especially when you consider it will retail for less than $400. 

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The FZ80 is in fact an update of the company’s existing FZ70 and houses the same 60x DC VARIO superzoom, but includes a new 18.1-megapixel 1/2.3-inch High Sensitivity MOS sensor. 

The lens itself is capable of 20mm wide-angle for landscapes while the 60x optic equates to a super long 1200mm. The maximum aperture range is f/2.8-5.9.

The array of 4K options is impressive for such a compact (130.2 x 94.3 x 119.2mm / weight 616 grams) and affordable imager. It shoots 8 megapixel JPEGs in multiple burst modes in 4K Photo mode. Switching to video it will capture 4K at 30p with a 100Mbps bitrate or Full-HD 1920x1080 videos at 60p. 

There’s an interesting 4K Live Cropping function, familiar to top-end outside broadcasters, which allows you to pan and zoom in HD from the 4K frame. This is complemented by a pair of high speed video modes: 1280 x 720 video at 120p and 640 x 480 at 240p. 

Panasonic says the inbuilt POWER O.I.S. (optical image stabilisation) system reduces image blur with both still and video shooting. An electronic shutter ranges in speed from 1s to 1/16,000s. There’s also a mechanical shutter.

The 3-inch rear LCD is the same size as its predecessor but is now a touchscreen with a resolution of 1.04 million dots (up from 460,000) and there’s a superior 1.17 million dot electronic viewfinder. Panasonic says this is five times sharper than the one on the FZ70. 

The Lumix FZ80 also boasts a high-speed autofocus system delivering an AF time of 0.09 seconds. The ISO range is bumped up from 100-6400 to 80-6400.

A ‘Post Focus’ feature allows you set focus points after capture. Selecting several focus points via the Focus Stacking feature offers the ability to create a final image with an increased depth of field.

There’s a time-lapse mode and burst shooting at 10p (AFS) and 6p (AFC). Other modes include Panorama Shot, Intelligent Auto, and Creative Control with 22 different filters. Artistic Nightscape mode offers a 60-second exposure.

There’s built-in WiFi for sharing to mobile devices. With no onboard storage, files are recorded to SD/SDHC/SDXC cards.

Current release date, as with the GH5, is March.

Taking back control of live

blog post for Focal Point VR

Facal Point VR demonstrates the power of the VR experience with a live production from the IMG Champions Tennis.

http://focalpointvr.com/news/taking-back-control-of-live/

Best viewed live and in high definition, sport has long been considered immune from many of the pressures facing linear TV. However, young people are switching off from TV sport as part of a drop in average audiences of nearly a tenth in six years, analysts have claimed.

Recent research by Ampere Analysis found that 18 to 24-year-olds, the younger end of the so-called ‘millennial’ age group, were 17% less likely to identify sport as their favourite form of programming than the general population.

At the same time viewing figures for TV sport are down on both sides of the Atlantic. It has been widely reported in the US that broadcast audiences for NFL matches have dropped across all major networks while UK sports channels, including Sky Sports, BT Sport and Eurosport reveals 2016 average weekly viewing is down by 9% compared to 2010

The data should ring alarm bells for pay-TV operators that rely on sport as the main draw for subscribers.

Ampere suggested that the rise of online streaming services such as Netflix and YouTube, as well as social media, was providing stronger competition for young people’s attention. 

This should come as no surprise. As a demographic, millennials have become accustomed to being more in control over how and when they consume TV content and, as a result, streaming services have grown in popularity with this audience more than any other.

“With an ageing fan base, broadcasters must get their eyes back on the ball if they are to retain – and grow – this highly desirable audience,” says the analyst.

There is a way in which sports rights holders and live event content owners can innovate a way out of the impasse. 

Streaming an event live in 360° to smartphone apps and virtual reality headsets offers a fundamentally different experience and what’s more, one that puts the viewer in control.

“VR video offers a genuine alternative way of consuming video,” says Ian Baverstock, Co-Founder, Focal Point VR. “It is different from conventional video recording in the way people perceive it. You lose some advantages of editing and action replay and the ability to zoom in and out of a picture. In effect, you lose the directed experience. But what you get in return is a feeling of authenticity and presence which is of tremendous appeal to a cynical youth audience who don’t value content served when someone else is in control.”

Instead of being mediated through someone else’s perspective, VR is about being live and present at the event. 

“It’s about having the freedom to look around and see what is really going on,” says Baverstock. “Offering consumers, and especially millennials, the chance to be part of something live yet under their own control is extremely valuable.”

To help prove the point, this week’s matches from the IMG Champions Tennis, including the final on Sunday December 4, are being live streamed in 360-degrees to a specially created app available to a select audience of broadcasters, sponsors and technologists.

The season ending finale of the ATP Champions Tour features some of the greatest players ever including John McEnroe and Pat Rafter competing indoors in front of a packed house in the awe-inspiring Royal Albert Hall.

Viewers will be able to switch between multiple streams for different perspectives on the live action much as they would access a Red Button on TV but all without leaving the VR stream. 

“We are not editorialising in any way,” explains Paul James, Co-Founder and Head of Production. “This is a viewer-based experience where they are the editor. The viewer makes the decision about when and where they want to watch. Our role is to make sure that when consumers do come to VR for the first time they experience such a ‘Wow’ that they will want to return for more.”

The event is also a prime opportunity to experiment with various aspects of what is still an emerging technology. Three different rigs will be arrayed around the court ranging from a stereo pair for 3D capture, a GoPro mounted rig for output to YouTube and a high-end system comprising three Blackmagic Micro Studio Camera 4K outputting dual streams of 4K and 6K.

Signals from the latter configuration will be fed into Focal Point VR’s own encoding, stitching and packing solution and delivered [by content delivery network/over the internet] to the app and also to an embeddable HTML5 player.

Longer term, the ability to share the experience with friends and family will be essential to the success of live VR. Developments by companies including Facebook are already working to crack the issue by introducing avatars and voice into the live feed.

“Ultimately you want to be able to share the experience of attending an event virtually with a member of your family who may live many miles away. While this capability is unlikely to be available in the first commercial launches of VR, the technology will soon offer the chance for both of you to teleport to the same experience. A step even beyond that is to enhance the ability to move around within and interact with the VR world, for example by being able to point rather than just look. Our technology allows broadcasters to engage with consumers on a completely new level.”

Wafer-thin OLEDs and HDR were this year’s CES TV advances

Red Shark News

Amid all the usual hoopla about wacky gadgets — this year being AI toothbrushes, robotic cushion cleaners and walk around VR — you can rest assured that the old product category of TVs is where the largest manufacturers are putting most of their marketing and R&D. These were the CES 2017 highlights.

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TVs sell. Always have done and, if the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) is right, then 4K Ultra HD TVs “arm in arm with High Dynamic Range,” according to its senior director of market research, Steve Koenig, remains one of the industry's fastest-growing segments.

It projects shipments of UHD displays to reach 15.6 million units in 2017 and earn $14.6 billion in revenue in the US alone.

Global TV volumes, meanwhile, are expected to rise slowly, though within that 4K UHD sales should see an impressive jump from 53 million units last year to 82 million next year. “OLED is also starting to make its value felt in the market but that will be a next-decade story,” added Koenig.

No self respecting TV is complete without HDR capability and being wafer thin

No TV will be marketable in the year ahead though without a badge signposting its performance in High Dynamic Range (HDR). Most manufacturers are hedging their bets, or perhaps making the only sensible choice by supporting the main flavours of HDR: Dolby Vision (technically known as PQ) which is Dolby’s proprietary HDR format; the open HDR format HDR10; and Hybrid Log Gamma (HLG), developed by the BBC and NHK which is considered more applicable to the inconsistent pipelines and final displays of broadcast than the more calibrated cinema environment.

For example, LG’s new top-of-the-line ‘W’ OLED model features an ‘Active HDR’ function that allows the unit to support four HDR technologies (the fourth being Advanced HDR, Technicolor’s broadcast distribution system which also upscales Standard Dynamic Range).

This number of HDR formats will likely be whittled down in time. Consumers will become confused (though most major brands will badge their top of the range screens as UHD Premium meaning it includes HDR); vendors don’t want the added expense of incorporating more bits into their displays; and neither broadcasters nor Hollywood studios want to have to keep mastering multiple versions, which they currently have to.

On that point, Technicolor said it will use only LG OLED TVs as reference monitors for colourists working on Hollywood content at Technicolor owned facilities (rather than promote tools of its chief rival Dolby).

The multiple HDR options are not only available in LG’s W series, but also in its new LCD TVs. These displays will also offer a feature that LG calls ‘HDR Effects’, which according to the Korean firm means the TVs are able to produce the "best picture even if the original HDR content contains static or no metadata at all.”

All of its displays also will offer an ‘Expert Mode,’ which Technicolor chief marketing officer Sandra Carvalho explained aims to improve “image and colour accuracy ... whether the image is displayed in SDR or HDR.”

While LG covered all bases, others had more fractured HDR offerings, and Samsung continued to strike out on its own.

Panasonic is touting the TX-65EZ1002B, a 65-inch OLED screen that supports HDR10 and HLG, but not Dolby Vision. Sony’s first 4K HDR TVs, including the XBR-A1E Bravia OLED, supports Dolby Vision, HDR10 and HLG.

Also aboard the Dolby Vision bandwagon are TCL, which introduced a $500 50-inch P-Series TV; and select new Roku TVs.

Separately, Dolby announced that Lionsgate, Universal, and Warner Bros had committed to releasing Dolby Vision UHD Blu-ray Discs early this year - good news for those who own Dolby Vision-enabled sets, but potentially irksome for anyone who already owns a TV that supports only HLG or HDR10 (Dolby Vision UHD Blu-rays should include an HDR10 base layer for compatibility with non-Dolby players and displays).

Samsung is the notable outrider, preferring to tout its own quantum-dot technology (now branded QLED) as not only better than OLED for displaying those all important deep blacks but also for showing-off HDR.

The company said its QLED displays can accurately capture all colours in the DCI-P3 colour space at all levels of brightness between 1500 and 2000 nits.

Samsung is also sticking with the curved screens it introduced last year for its higher range models, even introducing a new range of curved monitors targeting gamers.

Only thin models need apply

It may be un-PC but there is only one size that counts when it comes to TV. Models have been reducing in size since the junking of the cathode ray tube. NHK is even working on giant screens of 8K resolution which can be rolled up. At previous CES, prototypes of paper thin mouldable displays were shown by LG among others.

That’s the future. Right now for a cool $20k you can walk away with LG’s signature 65-inch ‘W7’ which is just one-tenth of an inch wide and weighs 18 pounds. Despite the thinness, "It's fairly durable," says Tim Alessi, head of product marketing at LG USA. "It seemed pretty substantial." The firm has designed a mount that uses magnets so the set can be fixed flat (well, 3mm) against a wall, which the firm says means it doesn't cast "a single shadow". It also boasts Dolby Atmos immersive sound.

While not as thin as LG’s Sony’s new Bravia OLED A1E would also sit flush against a wall. It has a feature called Acoustic Surface where the display itself transmits the sound by pushing the sound through the screen rather than the edges of the display.

Also notable in the category: Hisense has a 100-inch 4K TV that uses a short-throw laser projector with a 5.1 sound channel system for $13k.

DJI to tackle Hollywood with Hasselblad acquisition?

Red Shark News 

Last year DJI Innovations bought a minority stake in classic camera brand Hasselblad and this year it’s gone the whole hog and acquired a controlling share of the company.

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Aside from buying one of the most iconic names in high-end photography, the question behind DJI's move is why? Well, maybe that’s the point. With ink on the deal barely dry, and neither party quoted anywhere as yet about future plans we can speculate that either DJI, the Chinese drone market leader, is branching out into specialist cameras separate from aerial filming, or more likely, it will integrate Hasselblad tech into its Phantom UAV range.

Hasselblad started out around the same time as Kodak (founder Arvid Hasselblad apparently met Kodak founder George Eastman on honeymoon in 1888) but came into its own post second world war making medium format film stills cameras, notably the 500 C design. Its cameras were subsequently used by NASA almost exclusively on the Apollo missions sending the Hasselblad brand into an orbit of highly desirable objects. Despite this the firm struggled to make the move to digital and was sold (from Chinese camera distributor Shriro) to private equity firm Ventizz in 2011.

Since 2003 the firm has been making DSLRs, gradually growing is H range until introducing the H5D-50C, a medium format CMOS camera system, and in June last year, the X1D-50c, the first of a new line of medium-format mirrorless imagers. In a market of declining prices Hasselblad wasn’t afraid of keeping a premium. The X1D-50c, for example, is listed as $8000 body only.

While DJI has developed its own cameras, including the Zenmuse X5R, a Micro Four Thirds camera capable of recording 4K in RAW at framerates up to 30fps, its drones tend to be eschewed by UK based aerial filmmaking companies in favour of heavy duty heavier lifting craft which can fly professional digital cine cameras like a RED or Alexa Mini plus the weight of professional lenses. 

Could a reworked Hasselblad camera combined with craft payload in the range of 13kg/28lbs be DJI’s tilt at Hollywood? Certainly the cache of a classic brand on par with a Rolex, longtime partner Zeiss (or Saab) will do no harm in tempting more filmmakers onboard.

Tech revolution gets into gear

Broadcast

Broadcasters’ experiments with virtual reality, UHD and live production over IP pointed to the future of television in a year when sales of 4K sets took off.

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The BBC, Sky and BT were among dozens of media organisations experimenting with virtual reality production in 2016, even though the addressable audience is, as yet, too small to monetise.

Nonetheless, in a sign of how seriously the creative community views VR, Hollywood studios launched the VR Society in July and Bafta formed a VR advisory group in October.

In the short term, VR consumer gear will be dominated by low-cost ‘shells’ into which people slide their smartphones, epitomised by Google Daydream’s £70 holder for Android phones, and more expensive head-mounted displays (HMDs) offering more rounded 360 experiences, including Sony’s £350 PS4 VR.

The overwhelming popularity of smartphone VR combined with the current generation of HMDs, which many consider uncomfortable, heavy and with inferior screen resolutions, has led to warnings that the format could misfire.

“Poor-quality content or user experience on first trial jeopardises VR’s longevity and consumers’ willingness to return to the technology,” says Futuresource associate director Carl Hibbert.

The format’s novelty is among the factors limiting current VR content to a few minutes. Production tools are as nascent as storytelling grammar, stitching software is varied in quality and post-producers are performing colour grades and editorial by looking at a flat screen image.

“You can’t do edits or sound in VR environments because the tools don’t yet exist,” says Technicolor entertainment technologist Mark Turner.

The US National Basketball Association will stream one game a week in VR during the 2016-17 season, but live VR has yet to be commercialised by a UK broadcaster, despite trials.

“We’ve put VR cams on Formula 1 cars, but the speed of the action, especially as the cars corner, can be nauseous to a viewer,” says Sky VR creative director Richard Nockles.

But development will be rapid because of serial investment being made in the technology. Discovery and HBO have taken stakes in VR developer OTOY; Comcast has acquired an interest in VR producer Felix & Paul; and Sky has launched its VR Studio and an app to distribute 20 original commissions.

Meanwhile, Nokia has released live broadcast capabilities for its VR rig Ozo, Google is building a high-end VR camera system with Imax, and Facebook is working to integrate live social media into VR system Oculus.

“Two hardware cycles from now, VR will be massive,” predicts The Foundry chief executive Alex Mahon. “Consumer gear will be less invasive, easier to hook up to a VR system and more like a pair of glasses than a phone.”

Going live over IP

At the start of 2016, questions surrounded the equipment and protocols needed to create a complete chain for live production over IP. There has since been a gear change and the mood music at IBC in September was that IP live was ‘problem solved’.

“Before that show, the use of IP in a programme environment was theoretical, but what we’ve learned is that IP is working,” says David Wood, EBU Technology & Innovation’s deputy director of technology and development. “IP is now at a tipping point.”

Tech vendors began 2016 in competing camps aligned to different IP paths, but momentum inexorably shifted behind the Alliance for IP

Media Solutions (AIMS), a 50-plus coalition of manufacturers backing standards ratified by the Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers (SMPTE).

Significant new endorsers include Sony, Evertz and the International Association of Broadcasting Manufacturers (IABM), though NewTek remains a vocal outlier.

Nowhere is this more explicit than at Belgium broadcaster VRT, which remodelled its live IP production studio on IBC’s show floor.

This demonstrated how a number of potentially rival kit makers could make their equipment work together for the benefit of a client — arguably the first time such interoperability has been achieved in the traditionally closed broadcast engineering industry.

Yet implementations of the technology remain thin on the ground.

Announcing plans to conduct the country’s first virtualised live event broadcasts, for Dave in partnership with Ericsson, UKTV did not quite commit to virtualised playout of all its channels.

The hesitation facing broadcasters is not whether to invest in IP, but why invest now?

“The economics of IP make more sense at the enterprise level and probably do not yet stack up for smaller projects,” admits Snell Advanced Media (SAM) head of product marketing Tim Felstead. “The industry has to make a case for IP beyond pure return on investment. IP is not swapping one technology for another; it offers a whole new approach to market.”

“The technology works,” agrees Sony marketing director Michael Harrit. “The discussions we are having are around how much customers are willing to pay for this service.”

UHD production

Just as Planet Earth ushered in HD for the BBC in 2006, so its sequel Planet Earth II is the first BBC series produced entirely in UHD. Just as significantly, it’s been given a High Dynamic Range (HDR) sheen.

HDR concerns the difference between the darkest and brightest parts of a picture and is considered a more profound upgrade than resolution.

The ITU standard for working with HDR was ratified in July based on the BT 2020 UHD standard and offering two options for production, known as PQ and HLG.

PQ is designed for playback on displays up to 10,000 candelas, giving it more dynamic range. HLG (codeveloped by the BBC) is a better format for enabling a consistent HDR playback on both the most recent and older 4K displays.

“Crucially, the standard enshrines the ability to convert between them,” says Andy Quested, chair of the ITU group responsible for the breakthrough. “So if a Hollywood movie is delivered to a broadcaster in PQ, it can be converted to HLG for delivery, easily, and without damaging the output,” he adds.

Increasingly, commissions are likely to arrive with 4K and HDR deliverables.

These include Sony TV/Crackle. com’s Snatch and Amazon’s The Grand Tour. Sky Atlantic’s forthcoming drama Riviera is also UHD/HDR. DoPs and colourists will need to get up to speed.

“We’ve a lot more to learn about grading in HDR when the end display can be 10 or 100 times brighter than what we’re used to,” advises Quested.

The next steps

Leaps in technology are arriving faster thanks to rising broadband capacity, powerful computer processing and an insatiable demand to communicate with video. Based on this trajectory, a number of clues about the media of 2020 and beyond emerged this year.

Products for working in 8K UHD resolution, for example, are becoming a regular feature of kit trade shows.

The pick of the bunch was the Millennium DXL digital cine camera, fusing a Red 8K sensor with Panavision optics, which debuted in June.

While Japanese state broadcaster NHK plans to deliver 8K transmissions to domestic audiences by 2018, the arrival of new mobile communications standard 5G could, in theory, speed 8K video to the home anywhere.

The broad outlines for 5G were agreed this year, with telcos lining up dozens of private and public trials from 2018 onwards. It means baseline speeds of at least 20Mbps and extremely low latency — a combination that will make high-resolution, individually delivered media a reality.

Higher frame rates were also back on the agenda in 2016. The technique, which erases motion blur in fast action, will be introduced by sports broadcasters once Gigabit Ethernet capacities permit.

Director Ang Lee shot war drama Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk at 120 frames a second, an unprecedented speed that tested the boundaries of what it means to tell fictional stories using hyper-realistic images.

In what might seem a retro step, celluloid continues to find favour.

Kodak launched a new Super 8 camera in January and film processor CineLab London opened a 65mm lab in October to service a revival in large-format cinematography, including Kenneth Branagh’s upcoming movie adaptation of Murder On The Orient Express.

Perhaps the most ground-breaking product of the year was the Lytro Cinema Camera. The prototype, which debuted in April, uses light-field photography to measure the geometry of the light that strikes the sensor.

Software can then reconstruct virtually any aspect of a scene, including focal length or frame rate — theoretically affording unrivalled creative freedom in post-production.

A commercial model is due in the spring and the Silicon Valley firm is already working towards a handheld, portable next-generation update.

Set Manufacturers Back 4K Tech

Strong growth in display sales and increasing UHD content helped cement 2016 as a ‘banner year’ for 4K UHD, according to the Consumer Electronics Association.

Penetration of 4K screens into UK homes will top 1.68 million this month, representing 10% of UK households, according to Futuresource Consulting, which predicts a rise to 27% by 2018.

The launch of Sky Q, including the 4K-compliant Silver set-top box and an app that permits playback on smartphones for the first time, prompted rivals to launch upgrades.

Virgin Media debuted Virgin TV V6 with an updated TiVo user interface and the ability to play Netflix and YouTube 4K content.

Not to be outdone, BT announced an overhaul of digital TV recorder YouView, and is eyeing a summer 2017 release for a BT TV app that will allow users to stream content to mobile devices.

Reports suggest that the operator is in talks with YouView consortium members (including the BBC and ITV) to take full control of the platform in a bid to speed development of new features and to add UHD channels.

With the introduction of High Dynamic Range (HDR) into the production and transmission workflow, HDR-enabled screens are making their way to retail. These are being badged Ultra HD Premium, a seal of approval that the display meets the specifications agreed last January by the UHD Alliance – a group including Samsung, Sky, Amazon and Warner Bros – to promote the new format to consumers.

In addition, vendors are keen to source UHD/HDR content to their products. Samsung, for example, has a partnership with Amazon and Netflix to offer HDR titles to its UHD TVs.

LG’s new flagship G6 TV (pictured) is capable of playing back HDR with High Frame Rate content up to 120p, an achievement devised with the EBU and the BBC (although frame rates from UK broadcasters are pegged at 50p for a while yet).

TV manufacturers also differentiate their products using panel technology like OLED and LCD. Philips’ latest OLED screen, for example, boasts a way of illuminating the back of the TV to match the mood of what’s happening on the screen.

If the camera plunges into the green jungle, the wall behind the screen will match the hue. 4K will be one of the major product trends at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, where manufacturers are expected to unveil a wider selection of 4K screens in sizes above 40 inches.

Lilliput goes large with 4K on-camera monitor

Red Shark News

Monitor specialist Lilliput has gone big with the launch of what it claims is the first 10.1" 4K on-camera screen to market. What’s more, you can get it for around $600 from several online outlets.

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The A10 boasts a native resolution of 3840 x 2160 and can accept up to 4K 60Hz via it’s HDMI 2.0 port. The panel won’t natively deal with the wider DCI 4K.

The panel itself is 8-bit IPS display and offers a 160-degree viewing angle It has a 1500:1 contrast ratio and provides inputs and outputs for 3G-SDI, HDMI, Displayport and a DVI-I (DVI-D, VGA) for connecting to a PC. The 3G-SDI limits SDI fed signals to HD, since several 3G-SDI connections would be needed for it to cope with 4K signals).

For image viewing and control the unit offers quad view, false colour, peaking, image flip, overscan and underscan.

It takes 12 to 24V DC for power, weighs 21.1oz and is pretty slim at 9.9 x 6.1 x 0.9”.

It may be prove on the large side for propping on a system’s camera, although perceiving the higher resolution will only improve with a bigger screen. The unit might also be used as a reference monitor on location, though it lacks the ability to load a look-up table.

The new demand for instant access in live ads

Red Shark News

Back to the future: While much of the industry concentrates on getting better quality pixels onto better quality screens, the immediacy of live TV is proving attractive to advertisers searching to grab eyeballs. How attractive? Try 18 locations in one 60-second commercial.

http://www.redsharknews.com/distribution/item/4234-going-live-in-commercials-the-new-demand-for-instant-access-in-live-ads

Brands love to be first with a format since novelty on its own generates column inches and internet buzz but the rise of live social platforms is taking advertisers and broadcasters way outside their comfort zone.

The high water mark this year was a 60-second live ad created for Virgin Holidays by agency AMV BBDO and aired in September at the start of X Factor’s run on ITV in the UK – and also via Facebook.

Creatively, the spot was unremarkable in its depiction of families at various popular long haul holiday destinations enjoying themselves, but its ambitious live production generated all the publicity which Virgin would have wanted to launch its Seize the Holiday campaign.

Video was shot simultaneously from 18 locations including Hawaii, Maui, Thailand and Florida with streams cut live into roughly three second clips by the gallery director and vision mixer at ITN Productions’ London HQ.

Technically, the spot was achieved following six months of planning, a 90-person ground crew and a dress rehearsal the day before wrangled by director Simon Ratigan.

Having considered satellite and fibre connectivity to bring the live images back, ITN Productions used LiveU’s portable cellular transmission kit LU200 for 15 of the 18 locations. The units were chosen, according to ITN, for flexibility, reliability and cost reasons.

In the event, one feed, from California’s Pacific Coast Highway, failed to materialise resulting in blank picture colour bars on-screen. The producers could have simply cut this feed out but chose to keep it in to maintain the feeling of live authenticity. They had wriggle room too as the spot wasn’t quite live - the feed accommodating a 30-second delay in order for ad standards enforcement agency Clearcast to give it the nod.

However, the use of live as part of the traditional TV ad inventory is likely to become more common as brands risk the traditional polish for a chance to directly engage an audience on social media. Central to Virgin Holiday’s campaign in this instance was a follow-up launch on Instagram.

Earlier this year, on a smaller scale, UK high-end supermarket Waitrose live-streamed an ad from one of its dairy farms, while in June, Channel 4 partnered with Sony Playstation to take over the whole ad break during Gogglebox for an interactive Twitter-based competition. The campaign resulted in 25,000 entries and trended first on UK Twitter.

We’re likely to see more of this sort of thing too. Here’s Chris Braithwate, agency principal at Channel 4 sales, talking to Marketing Week: “Viewers are now watching big shows like Gogglebox and almost expecting something different to happen during the ad break. If it doesn’t, they are disappointed. Brands want to create great drama and make sure people don’t fast forward.”