MediaKind: Leave no set-top behind

Cable Satellite International

With the war cry “No set top should be left behind”, MediaKind says it wants to help payTV operators shift customers over to multiscreen, multiroom and more flexible UX environments by upgrading their legacy STBs with a software update.
http://www.csimagazine.com/csi/MediaKind-Leave-no-set-top-behind.php
IBC is the first trade show outing for MediaKind, the new brand identity for Ericsson Media Solutions. 

MediaKind itself has at least 40 million STBs in the market running the old Microsoft middleware Mediaroom. “The risk from an operator’s point of view is that, if left unchanged, these subscriber households will be cannibalised by OTT,” explained Arun Bhikshesvaran, CMO, MediaKind.

“Our intent is to make the UI the same so we can bring the customer forward and not leave them stranded. MediaFirst offers a traditional linear solution but also support Roku, Amazon Firestick, Apple TV or integration into Alexa and Google voice assistants. It allows operators to capitalise on the fact that world has changed in how people view TV. TV now is anything you can get video onto.”

It has built a MediaFirst Client, sold as a cloud-based SaaS, so that any Mediaroom customer can move their subscribers from Mediaroom boxes into the MediaFirst cloud-served environment. Several Mediaroom operators already have the client in their labs, plan to launch user trials and bring the new client to their markets soon. The first MediaFirst Client for Mediaroom customer is set to roll out its service in 2019.

For all the non-Mediaroom STBs out there, the firm has partnered with Zodiac - a sister company to MediaKind, being owned by the same financial backers One Equity Partners.
Metadata translation, multi-protocol support, BSS/OSS orchestration and other strenuous set-top functions are handled by the Zodiac cloud and messaged to set-tops.

Zodiac is incorporating MediaKind’s user experience into its STB software for operators including Charter, Altice (Cablevision) and Rogers. The software is updateable, interfaced with the MediaFirst backend and being demoed at IBC. For example, it is featured on current generation Humax hybrid HD-DVR set-tops with a Broadcom 7250 chipset and legacy Samsung HD set-tops with a Broadcom 7405 chipset running MediaFirst in Zodiac’s Zebra ‘lightweight’ browser.

“TV operators can now deliver even more compelling, immersive media experiences and increase monetization,” said Bhikshesvaran, quoting research estimates that such a “content-centric experience” can increase ARPU up to 30%.

The company is also presenting the core of its software solutions as the MediaKind Universe, consisting of five applications suitable for different operator business models.
For contribution and distribution, the Cygnus aims to securely acquire, backhaul and distribute content. Aquila is a direct to consumer service for linear and VOD. Orion is the firm’s customer experience backend comprising analytics, UI customization and dynamic ad-insertion features. Pictor is a video delivery networking application. Vega is a services option enabling the design, launch, support and management of operations.

The company is also sharing elements of its R&D which revolve around machine learning, analytics and smart cities.

In a proof of concept dubbed the Horizon Suite, MediaKind is combining codecs including HEVC and AV1 with machine learning “to make them more applicable to different distribution scenarios,” explained Gowton Achaibar, COO and head of R&D. It is exploring how advanced analytics and blockchain might be able to rope social media influencers (and their content recommendations) into the media distribution chain. Cloud workflows as replacement for satellite are also part of the Horizon Suite, as is a look ‘Beyond Entertainment’ at the use of video in smart city environments – an area into which video service operators may be looking to expand their business.

“The idea is to take those elements and recombine them in more ways which could open commercial opportunity,” explained CTO and head of strategy Mark Russell.

NASA Channel Lands on Roku

Streaming Media

Harmonic and its flagship customer NASA claim to have launched the first UHD HDR linear streaming channel. It includes content culled from an 8K camera on board the International Space Station.

http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/NASA-Channel-Lands-on-Roku-Streaming-8K-Video-From-the-ISS-127383.aspx

Available for users of Roku devices (principally in the U.S.) the channel is delivered over-the-top through an app using a cloud-based end-to-end video streaming solution from Harmonic, Accedo, and CenturyLink.

Since NASA first launched its channel over satellite in 2015 it has scanned archive film content into 4K and begun to capture more footage digitally in 4K and 6K. It even has an 8K camera orbiting the earth on the ISS, revealed Bryan Walls, deputy program manager of the NASA Imagery Experts Program at the Harmonic press conference at IBC. The channel includes a live stream and real-time views of Earth from the ISS.

“Some of this higher resolution content has not been easy to get out,” Walls said.

The new service should change that since it will use Harmonic EyeQ to compress the video to UHD HDR 60fps at a maximum 15 Mbps for Roku. It is ABR-based so will also deliver at around 8 Mbps where conditions necessitate preserving quality. By comparison, the UHD (not HDR) satellite-delivered NASA channel require 20 to 25 Mbps.

Accedo is providing the user experience layer for the app and CenturyLink the CDN. The HDR grading is HDR 10, chosen because Harmonic felt it was the most easily deployed format at scale. An SDR version in UHD is also being produced.

Tim Warren, SVP and CTO for the video business at Harmonic, said the NASA streaming channel helps showcase the expanded color space offered by the HDR format “from an intergalactic perspective, a feat that has never been achieved before."

Harmonic's work with NASA is a reference case for its software-as-a-service (SaaS), a focus of its IBC messaging this year.

“Cloud has emerged as the most efficient and agile medium for video playout and delivery for both linear and catch-up TV,” said Thierry Fautier, the firm’s VP of video strategy. “With our VOS360 Video SaaS we are at the forefront of this change.”

Harmonic shared a few stats about the adoption of its SaaS platform: 35,000 OTT channels are deployed worldwide using it, 3,000 of those are cloud native, and its software and appliances served over 1 million concurrent users with World Cup streams this year.

Riding on that success, the company is introducing new SaaS applications for operators including dynamic ad insertion and disaster recovery.

Of the latter, Fautier said, “We can use cloud to turn on a vast amount of channels within minutes. We can commit to start-up time in an hour for extensive channel line-ups.”

He added, “We all know that Harmonic has been recognised for its video processing solutions, but with streaming such a clearly growing part of video delivery we want to be an enabler for content monetization and personalization.”

HEVC, AV1, VVC and XVC: The codec battle intensifies

IBC

The world of codecs will be one of the big talking points at IBC this month, as the industry weighs up a raft of new, more efficient video compression techniques like AV1, VVC and XVC.

https://www.ibc.org/content-management/hevc-av1-vvc-and-xvc-the-codec-battle-intensifies/3172.article

Rising consumption of more immersive video content with higher resolutions has pressured the industry into innovating ever more efficient video compression techniques. Entering IBC2018, the outcome is far from certain with a number of competing technologies vying for attention.

Ken McCann, a Strategist at consultancy Zetacast, says the industry is experiencing a “once-in-a-decade” event caused by a major new family of video compression standards from MPEG and the ITU-T Study Group 16’s VCEG (Video Coding Experts Group) combined with the undermining of current MPEG standard HEVC by some of its own patent holders.

Analyst Ben Keen points to “a fascinating set of dynamics” playing out in the story of traditional codecs versus potentially disruptive alternatives. “It is a microcosm of the broader dynamic across the industry that sees traditional broadcasters grapple with the threat of global tech giants,” he says.

Compression has always been essential to digital video but what was at one time a relatively stable playing field engaged in by a few vendors has broken out of its niche. The codec battle has grabbed attention.

Regardless of the distribution channel, the cost for distributing video content is a major factor on the bottom line for most large video service providers as well as for infrastructure providers.

In many cases the quality of the compressed video has to be compromised in order to maintain a cost-efficient service and sometimes the video quality drops down to unacceptable levels just because of a bad network connection. Identifying a codec which could be deployed to improve quality and/or reduce costs is of interest for anyone in the media service and distribution business.

Recap before a look forward
The market today is dominated by the AVC/H.264 codec - a 15-year-old codec which is unable to keep up with modern alternatives in terms of performance but which is still very popular due to its widespread decoder support and well-functioning licensing situation.

There are (and have been for some time) several alternative codecs that provide significantly better performance than AVC/H.264 but the market is waiting for a candidate which ticks the boxes of high compression efficiency, reasonable encoder complexity, a functioning licensing scheme and broad decoder support.

The High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard was supposed to be the next in line and was last year backed by Apple but its position has stuttered under licencing cost issues and is now being challenged by rival codecs which promise better performance, or royalty free usage, or both.

 “Some five years after the HEVC standard was completed, it is still impossible to determine the total cost of licensing standard-essential HEVC patents without signing multiple NDAs and expending considerable effort in commercial negotiations,” says McCann. “This has rendered HEVC ill-suited to the needs of certain key market segments, such as video streaming applications.”

HEVC’s multiple patent holders chose to wait until after the technology had become accepted before declaring their patent rights and what the costs for use would be. In addition, the licensing environment is complex, with three patent pools, including one which has not made its terms public. It is further fragmented by several individual HEVC IP holders that are not members of any of pool and which generally have not published their licensing terms.

The recent announcement by HEVC Advance that it would no longer seek royalty fees for non-physical HEVC content distribution, including broadcasting and streaming, is certainly a welcome step. However, according to McCann the biggest concern with HEVC is that the total licensing cost is very difficult to determine, “hence it is difficult for a potential adopter to create an accurate business model.”

The damage may even undermine efforts by MPEG or any other codec developer to convince the industry of its value.

“The experience with HEVC has caused many segments of the potential user community to doubt whether some holders of essential patents will declare reasonable licensing terms in a timely manner,” reports McCann.

The great pretender
Into the breach have arrived a number of competing technologies the most notable of which is AV1. This is a royalty-free AV1 specification built on Google’s VP9 codec by the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia) of which BBC R&D is a member. The spec was finalised in June and a number of implementations are expected at IBC including from Bitmovin and a prototype encoder running in Amazon cloud from Socionext.

There is still an unfortunate shortage of well-conducted, neutral comparisons of the compression efficiency of AV1 and HEVC. Some studies by enthusiasts of HEVC have suggested that it performs about 30% better than AV1. Others, by supporters of AV1, have suggested that it outperforms HEVC by about 40%. A reasonable conclusion is that they are roughly comparable in compression efficiency.

“It is worth noting that AV1 requires a significantly more complex encoder to achieve this performance, so its use is likely to be restricted to non-realtime applications,” says McCann. “Its attractive feature is that it is royalty-free, but this claim has yet to be tested in court.”

BBC tests AV1 versus VVC
A major new suite of video coding technologies is being proposed within the Joint Video Exploration Team (JVET), a joint ISO/IEC MPEG and ITU-VCEG group created to explore tools with video coding capabilities beyond HEVC. JVET commenced work in April on a new video coding standard, known as Versatile Video Coding (VVC).

In a paper to be published at IBC2018, BBC R&D (researchers Marta Mrak and Andre Seixas Dias) will reveal results that suggest, both objectively and subjectively, that HEVC and AV1 are similar but that VCC seemed to outperform both by approximately 30%.

The ITU expects VVC to enable the delivery of UHD services at bit rates that today are used to carry HDTV. VVC would also enable twice as much video content to be stored on a server or sent through a streaming service.

But it’s at least two years from even being prototyped.

The young upstart
Another newcomer is from Swedish developer Divideon. Its XVC codec is derived from HEVC and VCEG but with a twist. It is being pitched between the two extremes of HEVC and AV1 where HEVC represents the “use the best technology regardless of cost and patent situation” approach and where AV1 represents the “use only technology available under royalty free terms,” according to Co-founder and CEO Jonatan Samuelsson.

 “The XVC codec represents the ‘use only technology available under a single reasonable license’ approach,” he says.

With such a layout in mind you would imagine HEVC to be better performing than XVC, but HEVC was finalized in early 2013 while the latest version of XVC (2.0) was released in July. Samuelsson claims XVC outperforms HEVC by around 20% and AV1 by around 10%.

It a software-defined and royalty-bearing codec, but claims to offer licensees a one-stop shop that covers all necessary rights for creating and using XVC compatible implementations. That’s because Divideon has constructed the technology in such a way that different tools and even individual processing steps can be isolated from each other.

“If we run into a situation where we are unable to reach an agreement with a third party patent holder or if one of our customers run into problems with a ‘patent troll’ we can quickly disable the tool in question and thereby avoid infringing that patent,” explains Samuelsson.

Another final difference is that the XVC codec comes with a decoder included directly with the reference software. Theoretically this means it’s possible to start deploying XVC on a wide variety of platforms with no need to wait for specific hardware decoders to be developed and then be built in to devices and then get widely deployed in the market - a process which takes several years.

While the XVC codec might prove a good option for applications where the decoding can be run in software, such as streaming applications to mobile, for use cases with high bitrates and high resolutions, a hardware decoder offers a more energy efficient alternative.

IBC launch for Media Coding Industry Forum
By all accounts the technical work on VVC has begun well but the commercial environment for VVC is more uncertain. When the VVC standard is completed in 2020 it will face a video compression market that that is more complex, confused and cautious than that experienced by the three previous generations of MPEG/VCEG standards: MPEG-2, H.264/AVC and HEVC.

The desire to improve its commercial prospects, by reassuring potential users that the mistakes of HEVC will not be repeated, has led several industry players to get together and form the Media Coding Industry Forum (MC-IF).

It intends to provide a forum where members from different areas of the video compression ecosystem can meet to discuss and resolve a broad range of potential barriers to deployment, including those that are beyond the scope of formal standardisation bodies.

The work of MC‑IF aims to be complementary to that of the standardisation bodies themselves and it is likely to include some consideration of licensing issues. MC-IF will be announced during IBC, with an MC-IF launch event in Amsterdam on September 16.

“If potential early adopters of VVC fear that excessive royalty demands may be made by some holders of standard essential patents years after the standard is completed, then they will delay launching products or services until the licence terms have been clarified,” suggests McCann. “This would significantly delay the launch date for these new applications.”

That would dent the industry’s rocketing momentum toward several future video services, such as 8K UHD and 360-degree omnidirectional video.

Esports Gears Up

FEED

Only a few years ago, esports were operating out of makeshift studios. Today’s events use OB trucks and professional broadcast equipment to push the limits of live.

p26 http://digital.feedmagazine.tv/issue_06/?

 Esports has moved into the mainstream. You can tell this because its merits as a possible Olympic event have been debated - with all the scepticism of middle-age punditry - on BBC Radio 5.

It is arguably the second truly global sport after football and continues to outpace growth predictions. Game-streaming platform Twitch registered 355 billion eSports hours viewed last year, and market intelligence company NewZoo forecasts the industry will be worth $1.6bn (£1.2bn) by 2021.

Will Waters, vp of ‘customer success’ at NewTek believes the reason for this popularity “has a lot to do with the live aspect of the events and the excitement of ‘anything can happen.’”

Its rise also goes hand in hand with higher production values, demanded by broadcasters like Sky and ITV (partnered with esports network Ginx) and by enthusiasts themselves.

“Esports audiences are generally much more attuned to experiencing higher-quality because many games are available to play in HDR and UHD,” says Jens Fischer an account manager for broadcast equipment vendor EVS. “The digital engagement or social media aspect of gaming is also an important part of the live events. Not only do audiences want to see the best possible quality, they also expect a more engaging live experience.”

All of which has prompted eSports producers to upgrade their kit and work with vendors more associated with live TV outside broadcasts.

“A major difference between conventional sport and an eSport event is that the audience at the venue don’t just want to sit and watch the game. They want to be truely involved,” says Fabian Leimbach, technical director at ESL, a leading eSports producer and event organiser.

ESL’s UK studio operations in Leicester has room for several teams of gamers, commentators and an audience of up to 100 fans. The largest studio broadcasts 3-4 times a week and includes a range of products from Ross Video.

“We wanted to take a step up from our previous equipment and create slicker and more professional-looking broadcasts, but also wanted to ensure that these broadcasts could be easily and consistently run by the people on the team who aren’t broadcast engineers,” says Sam Deans, ESL UK’s production director.

OB trucks rollup

Esports is one of the few sectors actively embracing large trucks and flypack formats. “Esports companies like to make a statement to their tech oriented fanbase, and a large truck/flypack definitely adds to the wow factor,” confirms Marc Genin, vp, Gearhouse Broadcast USA. “I would say that, currently, esports is probably the only growth market for large trucks outside of entertainment.”

He finds similarities with the music and entertainment market where the first thing an esports company looks for in a city is a venue with status – a Hollywood Bowl or Royal Albert Hall. “These venues add to the excitement level of the event and add kudos. Of course, most of these venues do not have a large control room and typically have a screen control room only. The only alternative is to bring in a large truck or flypack to service the event.”

On some events such as Call of Duty, the client will supply the qualification infrastructure that is typically a ‘multiple production in a box’ solution as made by Ross Video, NewTek or Blackmagic Design. Again, there’s a demand for high quality broadcast equipment for the main programme for which a large truck/flypack is the answer.

“It has the capability to take in the client supplied feeds and mix them into a full broadcast production. In short, high production values for a major tournament are always asked for.”

There are unique challenges that come with an eSports event that are typically not a part of a traditional sports production such as working with non-broadcast standard resolutions and framerates. Other challenges, depending on the gameplay, include capturing a massive number of players both in the gaming environment along with POV cameras.

“Esports producers are pushing the limits of broadcasting equipment to tell the story,” says Waters.

According to Fischer, “Previous workflows for eSports have been built around whatever technology was readily available. This means that production teams work much more on-the-fly, creating very imaginative programming. The teams’ approach to using more broadcast-standard equipment is to find the most interesting way to produce their live shows, using the technology to their advantage as much as possible.”

EVS worked with ESL to create first-of-their-kind in-game replays for live esports tournaments – something akin to output that would be delivered to fans watching any football or basketball game.

“For ESL’s first-person shooter games, we worked out a way to place observer PCs into a live game to view the action as if they were cameras,” explains Fischer. “Feeds from these are recorded in the PCs’ native 120Hz and ingested by the EVS server. ESL’s technical team use an LSM controller to create a replay in the same way they would for a traditional broadcast, slowing down the feed to the broadcast-standard 60Hz. This creates a half-speed replay with completely smooth playout and absolutely no loss of frames.”

ESL also deploy EVS DYVI which is a video switcher built on a IT/software-defined architecture. This means ESL can create a program setup within DYVI for each of the games played at any given tournament. Then as live production begins, the technical director can instantly recall the games’ configuration with the press of a button and begin cutting together a programme without any unnecessary delay between events.

It’s not all EVS kit at ESL. The producer also uses the Ross Video Carbonite Black production switcher and XPression graphic platform.

Higher frame rates

The typical streaming format for eSports is 1080p/60 or 50 which mirrors that of gaming machines. “There’s no option other than to broadcast fast action games like Overwatch or Fortnite in anything else,” says Fischer. “Audiences at home just wouldn´t accept it.”

Higher resolutions and framerates are nice, but it is arguably better to have a stable stream for the viewer to watch than to drop frames or risk buffering and lag.

“Viewers are quick to point out technical difficulties in the production and will move on when presented with a poor experience,” says Waters. “HD in 1080/60p will be dominate for now, but as bandwidth and computing costs continue to fall, more viewers will look to UHD streams of their favourite eSport event.”

Production Associates and Fanview used Forbidden Technologies’ Blackbird Forte cloud video platform, for pre, live and post-event production for an Epic Games-hosted Fortnite Celebrity Pro-Am tournament at E3 in LA. The core technology is the Blackbird codec which gives producers the ability to ingest video and edit in the cloud with little if any latency.

Drawing from traditional sports

There is evidence that eSports are most successful when they draw directly from the editorial presentation of mainstream sports.

Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas (MOBA) games for example account for more than half of Twitch’s eSports viewing and take the lion’s share of tournament prizes – The International 2017 had a prize pool of $24.69m (£18.68m). 

“Much in the MOBA world will seem alien to fans of traditional sport but, ignoring the specific rules and instead looking at movement, balance, objectives and map design, some familiar themes emerge,” observes Jonathan Broughton, lead analyst for the Insight arm of Broadcast Intelligence.

These include designated boundaries (like the markings on a football pitch); player positioning; and team tactics (when to defend or attack).

Esports fans have also begun to mimic the habits of traditional sports viewers. “Teams are more important than players, transfer windows are eagerly watched, and a significant proportion of audiences now comprise non-gamers who are simply fans of the format,” suggests Broughton. “Friendly areas must be defended and opposing areas attacked – leading to a balanced approach that normally results in offensive and defensive player roles being assigned.”

Waters identifies the “drama created by rivalry, tension and release between players as they interact with the game, announcers that narrate the gameplay and commentators that analyse the player choices. These are the elements that great video directors use to create narratives that capture viewers and make them eager for more.”

There is a lot more involvement with the live event too that in some cases include covering live bands at the finale. “Esports in truly a hybrid of both sports and entertainment from the facility perspective,” declares Genin.

To broaden its reach, ESL has evolved the live programming of the IEM events to feature similar elements to those in television sports. Pre- and post-game programming, half time shows and expert punditry are now staples of ESL’s events.

At the same, the nature of internet-only delivery and the pace of many of the games being played, means the speed of program production is very important. “During a live esports game, anything three-minutes old is forgotten,” said Simon Eicher, executive producer at ESL. “Our live programming and our social media content is what engages the fan base. Therefore, we need to be reactive, creating and delivering these supplementary assets as quickly as possible.”

Statistics are another inseparable component from the games. Tools like recorded replays and match histories create an abundance of data, all instantly available for public consumption. As in-game events occur, they are recorded and logged, and different programs or models can scan those logs for information. Every swing of an axe, movement around the map, and coordinate location can be noted.

“Personally, I wouldn’t even try to compare eSports with actual sports,” says Leimbach of ESL. “I’m talking about quality but production technique. We don’t want to be a sports broadcaster because we would lose a lot of the things that make eSports dynamic and unique.”

Function by design: AV in Scandinavia

AV Magazine

High expectations of technology in performance and design characterise the vibrant Nordics market

 https://www.avinteractive.com/features/market-sectors/function-by-design-03-09-2018/

As one might imagine, AV in the Nordics is cutting edge and tech savvy, heavily design centric and driven by the latest and greatest innovations coming out of the US and Europe. That’s not to say they’re not cost-conscious. Overall, the region’s economy has managed to avoid many of the issues faced by other European countries recently, allowing technology and design to flourish and form a key factor in many installations.

“The results speak for themselves,” says Richard Smith, sales manager, Calibre UK. “It has to look good and we are not talking about the product, but the end result. Quality leads the way in many installs, with the customer not needing to know how you get there, so long as it looks good and performs well.”

Tomas Erikson, Maverick’s business development manager for Sweden, says: “The Nordic region is extremely tech orientated and leads in adapting to new technology. On a general level you need to work to the fact that end users have high expectations of tech and the younger generation will enter the workplace expecting their employers to have technology to enable nimble work practices.”

Serge Philippo, Creston’s regional director says its partners and end users are early adopters of high-end technologies: “They often want things that still don’t exist”.

GLP Nordics’ sales manager, Daniel Rüdén also characterises Scandinavians as very technology savvy. “They are constantly looking for new developments and craving to get their hands on cutting edge technology. This reflects the behaviour from end clients and users alike in this region, as they are used to very high standards in advanced AV.”

Channel differences
The business climate in the region is broadly similar but there are notably differences in approach and channel which are worth considering.

“In Denmark and Finland communication is more straight forward: you ask straight questions and you get straight answers,” says Rüdén. “Business in Sweden and Norway is based more on networking, relationships and word of mouth.”

“Norwegian clients are very brand loyal and appreciate the kudos of particular ‘marques’,” reports Dennis Lundell, CEO, Aloud (a CEDIA member). “They are very willing to invest in particular items that are high end and stand out from their contemporaries.”

By contrast, he says, Swedish clients tend to opt for the complete package “and are more willing to draw on our years of expertise and knowledge.” The demand for tailored services and solutions is higher in the Swedish market. “Swedes value and wish to invest in hidden and more integrated systems, quite possibly a direct reflection of the how Swedes appreciate understated presentation.”

Perhaps Denmark sticks out, simply because the small geographic area with short transportation distances makes the market very compact.

“Any reseller can compete all over Denmark,” observes Lars Persen, pedagogical leader for Scandec Systemer, Norwegian distributor for Promethean. “This also creates a less distinct line between distributors and resellers.”

Other Scandinavian countries have clearer distribution channels. “There is need for both warehouse and specialist AV capacity nationally and installation resources and services locally, sometimes very far from the national capitals and warehouses,” says Persen. “In this, the Norwegian AV market is distinguished by its more demanding geography.”

Dataton sales director Trond Solvold, adds, “It’s important for Danish customers to have direct contact with the manufacturer while Swedish and Norwegian dealers are used to working with distributors,” while Melinda Von Horvath, vp sales & marketing for Peerless-AV suggests, “Norway is a geographically segmented market with a lot of dealers. Sweden is similarly a dealer market, Whereas, Finland is more of a distribution market. All need to be treated differently.”

One example of the differences between Denmark and the other Scandinavian countries are the public framework agreements. “While municipalities and counties for all their purchases have local framework agreements based on smaller tender descriptions, Denmark is totally centralized through a nationwide tenders,” explains Persen. “The Danish public market is perhaps easier to dominate – or to be excluded from.

“In short, we can describe the Swedish and Danish market as business driven, while Norway is more conservative. This might have to do with the fact that Sweden and Denmark are EU-members and Norway not.”

The seemingly unwavering growth in the Swedish economy is reflected in the flourishing residential AV and custom installation market.

Oil money
Lundell reports a high level of interest in “truly bespoke integrated solutions and an increase in the uptake of traditional handcrafted products” such as the Parisien metal work light switches of Meljac, paired with the latest functionality of Aloud’s control system.

If Sweden is the Nordic’s biggest AV market, Norway is economically stronger. While the recent slump in oil prices has impacted project investment the nation is awash with North Sea profits, smartly pooling over U$880 billion (€753bn) into a sovereign wealth fund.

Evidence of this can be found in Stavenger, Norway’s oil capital “back on the chart as a marketplace for innovations and communications” since oil prices more than doubled this spring from a low in early 2017. “The oil industry was always very international and because of high demand for efficient meetings across continents, Stavanger is a major force in locating good pro AV solutions, particularly for video conferencing and collaboration, also for offshore communications,” Lundell says.

Crestron is currently supplying kit for a client there. “Their goal is to make the world’s smartest building,” says Philippo, “where the building itself learns to know how its users are working and are adapting to their needs.”

Elsewhere in Norway, Bergen is becoming a major hub for media companies, start-ups, conferences and broadcasting clustered around the Media City which officially opened last November. A new airport terminal in Bergen features large format projectors to create an extended user space through 24/7 projection of tourist-friendly (natural landscapes) visual information. It’s set with a lower brightness to blend in with the wooden and marble interior of the airport.

Twin convention centres
Stockholm and Copenhagen are centres of conventions, conferences and concerts. The rapid expansion in the Fintech market is particularly noticeable in Sweden. Companies such as King, Klarna and Spotify all require AV-smart office space for meeting rooms, entertaining areas and multimedia facilities.

“The demand for AV in Stockholm is huge as the city is rapidly and constantly growing, so there is constant demand from new entertainment and MICE venues,” says Rüdén.

“Event companies have gained in stature and clout across the region,” says Solvold. “They work directly with corporate marketing departments so they exert a lot of influence over what is done and what technology is used. It’s perhaps a result of the “do-it-myself” attitude where many companies initially try to delegate AV requirements to the IT department or developers. When the AV bar is raised, event companies can step in with their expertise.”

Scandinavia hosts a wide variety of events increasing year on year, ranging from music festivals to conferencing. 

For example, touring exhibition Monitor Road Show will tour Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland over the summer; next year Sweden hosts the FIS Alpine Skiing World Championships, which will provide a variety of opportunities for AV. This autumn’s general election in Sweden might also have an impact on AV demand at political rallies.

In the digital signage sector Peerless-AV spies many opportunities for its Xtreme High Bright Outdoor Displays beyond the kit’s weatherproof capabilities. Von Horvath attributes this in part to the rise of electric charging stations that use outdoor displays in custom kiosk solutions.

Iceland small but strong
Let’s not forget Iceland in our tour of the Nordics. With barely 350,000 inhabitants, the market is very small yet modern and surprisingly strong in AV. “Icelandic AV companies such as Origo (previously Nýherji) exhibit strong technical knowledge of new technology and an understanding of digital signage products in particular,” notes Von Horvath.

“Iceland has a very broad entertainment culture, which in turn creates a demand for new technology,” says Rüdén. One example is the Harpa concert hall in Reykjavik, described by Rüdén as a “very forward-thinking venue, both from an architectural and AV equipment perspective.”

Persen reports increasing investments in pro AV in higher education in Norway in particular. The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim is spending €70 million on new buildings with construction due to start this autumn. “Demand for video streaming and more interactive communication methods are changing how the Scandinavian universities think, something that will be mirrored in big new campus investments,” he adds.

“A distinct shift is that that there now is little or no separation between AV equipment, such as panels, cameras and sound systems, and IT systems, including student computers, programming robots and software solutions,” says Persen. “There is simply a demand that everything installed in a classroom is able to work together, more and more seamlessly.”

In Oslo there are major investments in public buildings like the new Deichman library, opening in 2019, and a brand new national museum. The latter will, when open in 2020, become the largest museum in the Nordic region.

Live OTT no longer a pipe dream

content marketing for Rohde & Schwarz 

In today’s multi-platform OTT-centric world the question of how to support live content contribution and primary distribution has become a massive issue. The solution according to companies such as Akamai Technologies and Amazon CloudFront is a commercial Content Distribution Network (CDN). However, the new multi-platform distribution business model has created significant growth in operating costs.
https://www.rohde-schwarz.com/uk/solutions/broadcast-and-media/always-on-blog/posts/08-18-ibc-ott_234042.html

Content owners such as media companies and e-commerce vendors pay CDN operators to deliver their content to their end-users. In turn, a CDN pays ISPs, carriers, and network operators for hosting its servers in their data centres. For broadcasters, the whole issue of CDNs has become a major cost generator and can have a significant impact on their operating costs and therefore their profitability.

The ideal solution for many broadcasters would be the ability to operate live content contribution and primary distribution over the public internet. For many years this has been nothing more than a pipe dream, but now R&S RelayCaster offers a new and radically different approach to commercial CDNs.

At IBC2018, Rohde & Schwarz will introduce the latest version of R&S RelayCaster, which features integrated SDI / HDMI input and encoding. It enables the replacement of expensive, dedicated links or contracts with CDN service providers with reliable (encrypted as you wish) distribution of content across any distance, to any place that is reachable by Internet infrastructure.

Dutch company MediaChoice is one of the first to use it as the operating platform for a service for local broadcasters. The service allows regional broadcasters to bring their live signal to a central data centre, which acts as 'media-hub' allowing TV content to be made available to telecom providers, ISPs and other operators to add new channels to their IPTV and Internet/OTT packages.

All contribution and distribution is carried out over inexpensive consumer-level public Internet links, such as DSL or DOCSIS. To enable reliable and secure transmission of the live stream, Rohde & Schwarz say R&S RelayCaster builds a fully redundant service with independent data centres. Regional broadcasters subscribing to the MediaChoice service can choose an all-inclusive package, handling the complete contribution pipeline for a monthly fee. Already, around 120 local broadcasters are being supported using R&S RelayCaster and MediaChoice now plans to extend the service.

Consumers’ ability to access the content they wish, where and whenever they want is creating a technological revolution. R&S RelayCaster is a good example of technology that is fuelling that revolution.

Sci-Fi Short Shoots Anamorphic On 16:9 Sensor

content marketing for VMI

Shooting anamorphic with KOW anamorphic lenses  and a 16:9 widescreen camera is an unusual combination but it proved the perfect technical and aesthetic choice for a futuristic short film about the side-effects of cosmetics for Met Film School graduates Tomas Posada and Florian Thess.

https://vmi.tv/case-studies/article/145

Director Thess’ story Allure, written by Tom Van Overloop and lensed by Posada, is set in 2025 and concerns the dilemma faced by a social media influencer when she learns the truth behind the make-up products she is promoting.

One of the filmmaker’s main influences was Netflix series Black Mirror which satires the dangers of our reliance on immersive technology and internet communications in the near future.

“Our first choice for camera was the Canon C500 because it has a very digital, clean look which would lend the film a sharpness to fit with a story based around technology,” explains Posada. “We also wanted to shoot anamorphic because the distortion correlated with the disturbing theme and we felt this mixed well with the film’s high colour contrast. We needed to be very orange and yellow across people’s faces with blues in the background.”

Having never shot anamorphic before, Posada spent at day with VMI testing how different focal lengths and spherical lenses would perform with the C500.

“I wanted to be sure that the combination of the Canon with the Odyssey 7Q recorder and the KOWAs would actually work,” he says.

Anamorphic lenses are conventionally shot on a 4:3 sensor but since the C500 has a 16:9 sensor the filmmakers need a way to way to monitor what they were shooting. This was made possible by the anamorphic function of the Odyssey 7Q recorder which enables a simultaneous crop and desqueeze function from the 4K DCI output of the Canon C500. 

To give the film an even more cinematic feel, Posada planned to use a wide aspect ratio and tested a range of settings at VMI.  “We were originally going to go with 2:35:1 cinemascope but after testing decided that the more extreme 2.76:1 was more suitable for the story’s futuristic milieu.”

Alongside the C500, KOWA set and Odyssey the filmmakers rented a DJI Ronin gimbal from VMI.

“Once we were clear that the film’s style would be clean and smooth then the shakiness of handheld just wasn’t going to fit. I know Barry and the team will always help me with any issue or concern we have about shooting and they always give advice as to how best to proceed with the kit. VMI was also one of the few places I’ve seen with the C500 in stock.”

The three day shoot principally at a London hotel went very smoothly, reports Posada who is about to grade the short on Davinci Resolve. “The only mild hiccup is that the files from the Odyssey were large so it’s taken a longer time to transcode than we realised but we’ve already tested footage from the Canon and I know it will give us a lot of options in the grade.”

The 12-minute film will premiere in November at the Westfield Vue before heading to festivals worldwide.