Dreamtek kits out Red Bull Gaming Sphere in London

Inavate

Red Bull’s new games and esports studio in the London district of Shoreditch is packed with state of the art PC and gaming technology designed to boost the skills and show the talent of the UK’s gaming community to the world. The multi-purpose facility is designed for casual players and professional gamers alike and hosts tournaments as well as esports educational events, workshops and one-on-one activities.

http://www.inavateonthenet.net/case-studies/article/dreamtek-kits-out-red-bull-gaming-sphere-in-london

This is the second Red Bull Gaming Sphere in the world, after a similar studio opened in Tokyo in February.

With 16 PS4 Pros, 16 Xbox One Xs, 4 Nintendo Switches and 4 Nintendo Wii Us, plus a host of Asus PCs and laptops, as well as VR headsets, arcade fighting sticks, Fanatec racing wheels, Sim-Lab racing chassis and noblechair luxury gaming seats, the London hub is bristling with kit to lure gamers and esports pros.

A live streaming and production facility lets Red Bull produce and stream competitions from the Sphere to sites like Amazon Twitch, YouTube, Facebook or Periscope.

Red Bull tasked integrator Dreamtek to design and commission the AV infrastructure to match the modular setup of the venue. 

“Because no single day is the same in the Gaming Sphere, the infrastructure of the space had to be flexible to allow for multiple configurations which differ in size and requirement,” explains Kashaan Butt, Dreamtek’s chief engineer and systems architect. “The Sphere is designed to hold a live audience but it’s a gaming space first and foremost so the principal consideration for the broadcast component was the fl exibility to be able to record anywhere. The larger events which are live streamed, are all managed from the Sphere’s own gallery.”

Tech-focused e-retailer Newegg is in charge of producing and scheduling events including tournaments, PC-building workshops, meet- and-greets with influencers and other gaming- related events.

Dreamtek’s own expertise spans systems design and install as well as video production and its staff have also managed the live stream of events from the Sphere for Red Bull.

“Some of the events we’ve done have packed in a couple of hundred people so as you can imagine this gets really busy as they will gather around the players. The specifi cation just had to be as flexible as possible without impact on gamers themselves – that was crucial,” says Butt.

Dreamtek’s starting point was to design and wire an IP and SDI infrastructure in which feeds from any camera, PC or console source could be captured, recorded and played out.

A suite of Blackmagic Design (BMD) kit runs throughout the project including a Smart Videohub 40x40 router connected to dozens of Blackmagic Micro Convertors taking IP feeds from PCs and SDI signals from the consoles and PCs in and out of the infrastructure, as well the option of taking video over IP (NewTek NDI) feeds from the PCs too.

Multiple PTZ hothead cameras, two BMD Ursa Mini Pros and a BMD Micro Studio Camera 4K plus 12 mini-cams to capture gamers reactions worn by gamers are fed via HD-SDI into a Atem 4M/E Broadcast Studio 4K to generate the camera sub-mix. The program feed is routed to vMix and mixed with the video over IP (NewTek NDI) inputs from the gaming machines.

vMix is a software video mixer and switcher working off an Asus PC and providing live HD video mixing, a task previously only possible on expensive dedicated hardware mixers.

Dreamtek ensured that there are multiple points to re-position the PTZ cameras so that the Sphere can be arranged in bespoke configurations suited for any gaming occasion.

Each of the PCs, consoles, the PC running vMix and the machine feeding the studio’s video wall are fitted with Blackmagic Design Decklink Duo 2 cards for flexible capture and playback. These will soon be swapped for DeckLink 8K Pro enabling the facility to run even higher resolutions over 12G SDI.

“Right now we are producing at 1080p 60 but we want to futureproof the facility at 4K UHD 60p,” explains Butt. “The high frame rate is really important in gaming and frankly a necessity if we are to deliver the production values our client – and esports enthusiasts – expect.”

There are multiple methods of capture installed, including SSD recording from the Ursa Minis, multi-channel H.264 encoders feeding into a streaming server and half a dozen Hyperdeck Studio Minis to capture up to 4K.

“Blackmagic’s release of H.264 support for the Hyperdeck Studio Mini was timely for us,” says Butt. “When you have competitive games lasting up to three hours in duration we have had to transcode to reduce the data capacity requirements for our primary and nearline storage. But with H.264 we’re able to reduce that capacity requirement hugely without going the transcode step and simplifying the workflow.”

The whole fabric is low latency enough that Red Bull’s production team can cast a feed from a gamer’s console onto the Sphere’s 5.6m x 3.5m Samsung panelled videowall and the gamer will use it to play from even though they have their own monitor.

“It means everyone in the audience can follow the game live too,” says Butt. “Being able to play a game over the network like this at such low latency is some achievement and not possible a few years ago.”

The team is also able to control the zoom and focus of the Micro Studio Camera 4K via the Atem. Expert commentators (Casters) are filmed against a blue chroma background with the Atem used to pull keys and then overlay the casters picture in picture onto the gaming feed.

All the video is monitored on Blackmagic MultiView 16s which accept up to 16 different sources and combine them into a single reference display. 

“When teams are competing in the two main PC gaming areas we will have gamer-cams just peeking over their monitors and all those feeds come into the Multiviewer so that we can see all gamers at once,” says Butt. “This is really useful because we can select a gamer-cam feed, add graphics and overlay onto the main feed.”

Flexibility is also built-in to the Sphere’s lighting design. The entire ceiling is fitted with a LED Cloud from Cirro Lite over which Red Bull has complete control for programming, daylight dimming and colour temperature.

All of this can be controlled from anywhere in the space by an iPad Pro running the Luminair App, which interfaces with a DMX to Network node. There are presets that have been built for regular events, but the team can also build an entirely bespoke lighting setup for one-off events.

All the consoles and PCs are wired into a Dante network with audio mixed at an Allen & Heath DLive C1500 panel, controlling a MixRack DM64. Audio is also recorded from an Audio- Technica System 10 Pro wireless digital mic set up. Wireless BP894 head-mics are worn by the gamers, and Audio-Technica ATW-T1002 wireless handheld mics are provided. The studio is wired with boundary mics - again Audio-Technica (ATND971) - to pick up ambient and audience sound. Dreamtek turned to Apart Audio, installing Mask8F loudspeakers and Sub2400 subwoofers, as well as Revamp amplifiers.  

Analysis: Why NEP acquired SIS Live

IBC

NEP’s latest acquisition, a deal for connectivity services firm SIS Live, was announced yesterday. And it’s unlikely to be the OB giant’s last, writes Adrian Pennington. 

https://www.ibc.org/production/analysis-why-nep-acquired-sis-live/3381.article

NEP Group is by some distance the world’s largest live production facilities supplier, driving high profile broadcasts including Love Island, Wimbledon and cricket’s IPL.

Barely a week passes without news of a significant addition to the US group’s capability in a strategy that has seen its value soar from U$800 million to more than U$2.5 billion in five years.

That coincides with the period in which Chief Executive Kevin Rabbitt has been at the helm. A Harvard MBA scholar with no previous experience of the broadcast or media industry (he joined from a company selling household blinds), Rabbitt has steered NEP through multiple buyouts and successfully integrated each new division into the group’s expanding global operation.

Rabbitt may be in day to day charge but the real power behind the organisation is arguably Deborah Honkus, NEP Group founder, chair and executive director. She began her career in 1978 with Total Communications Systems - a Pittsburgh-based mobile production company with a single truck to its name. In 1986 when TCS merged with NEP, she became general manager of the combined company, serving as CEO until 2012.

By that time NEP was a major player in outside broadcasts but based predominantly in the US and UK and almost exclusively on the supply and crewing of heavy metal – large multi-million dollar OB trucks.

NEP saw that the writing was on the wall for this business model. Margins have been historically tight in the outside broadcast business, requiring huge capex on scanners and equipment just to get into the game.

Failure to secure long-term contracts with broadcasters for premium sports rights spells financial disaster and competition for bread and butter business is intense. That’s not helped by there being few lucrative rolling deals in an industry where demand tends to be cyclical with bonanza years around major Olympic or World Cup events, followed by fallow ones.

Added to which emerging technology, perennially squeezed broadcaster budgets and evolving production techniques and formats like 4K meant OB providers had to re-engineer their kit toward more flexible IP networks and prepare for a future in which the processes traditionally performed at a venue from a mobile facility were managed from a remote or centralised location.

Financial resource to invest and survive these changes was essential.

That’s where NEP scores big. Formed 34 years ago out of local US TV station WNEP-TV, the firm has been majority owned by private investment groups since 2007. It was Crestview Group’s injection of cash, buying out American Securities in 2012, which prompted a surge in M&A activity.

Instead of focusing firepower on a specialist area, NEP doubled down investment on an array of affiliate equipment, services and people all over the world.

No longer defining itself as a mobile unit provider or outside broadcast supplier, it transformed into a worldwide outsource solutions provider supporting the live event and broadcast industry.

Among its conquests were Bow Tie Television and Roll to Record, both smaller OB players in the UK market which, added to the assets of Welsh outside broadcast supplier Omni TV (acquired 2010), made NEP the largest UK OB company.

Not even a fire at its British headquarters late 2015, which destroyed tens of millions of pounds of equipment and a significant part of its UK fleet which potentially put contracts for Sky’s EPL at risk, dented NEP’s rise.

In January 2014, NEP established a significant footprint in south-east Asia by purchasing Global Television, which had co-host broadcaster credentials for the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

Later that year it landed Dutch LED screen rental firm Faber Audiovisuals, and in 2015 added Ireland’s Screen Scene, Sweden’s Mediatec Group, Germany’s RecordLab and Belgium’s Outside Broadcast.

Danish OB firm DBlux, Singapore-headquartered flypacks and broadcast services Broadcast Solutions Group followed before paying £124m to takeover Avesco, owner of events business Creative Technology in November 2016.

In June it announced acquisition of Italian OB supplier Telerecord and earlier this month landed a contract to supply soccer team AS Roma with production facilities. Two weeks ago, NEP bought US-based OB, ultra-slow-motion and robotics camera specialist Fletcher Group, adding further muscle to its rental offering in the US market alongside the assets of Bexel, which NEP acquired in August 2017.

It now boasts more than 3500 permanent staff across 24 countries but more significant than its armoury of over 170 trucks is its diversification into services spanning post production (at Screen Scene, for example) to live event cinema and the new cornerstone of live production – video over IP.

Perhaps the benchmark for this model exists in Australia where earlier this year NEP opened two IP-based production hubs at Sydney and Melbourne.

The most technically advanced facilities on this scale in the world, the Andrews Hubs facilitate multiple concurrent outside broadcasts for Fox Sports which take place across Australia. No longer does Fox have to send trucks and crew to venues in Brisbane or Adelaide when all vision and audio feeds as well intercom, control and metadata is transported via high bandwidth network to central production teams.

Overcoming the vast geographic distances of Australia made remote production an imperative for local broadcasters but similar cost-saving production models are gaining ground everywhere.

In Europe, NEP’s initiative in this area is being led out of The Netherlands and a division based on DutchView and Infostrada which were acquired in 2015 and pioneering cloud-based live studio production.

The deal for SIS Live should be seen in this light. The deal (terms not disclosed) principally provides access to a fibre network which connects dozens of sporting venues across the UK and paves the way for rollout of future remote production services.

SIS’ major client is UK Racing for which it supplies integrity feeds (with RaceTech) of live horse races (for verifying results and race enquiries) and distributes live race feeds for horse and greyhound racing into betting shops or online betting sites. Gambling is an expanding market in the sports business, one which will have attracted NEP. Furthermore, these race feeds are coordinated remotely over the fibre network. Neatly, NEP holds the contract with ITV to produce all the UK’s horse racing broadcasts.

SIS Live’s fate is a salutary lesson. It became a major player in the UK after acquiring the BBC’s OB division in 2008 and securing the bulk of BBC contracts along with it. But after losing out when the tender was renewed in 2013 it was forced to sell off assets including 14 OB trucks.

It’s in the nature of private investment companies to continually expand, pay dividends to partners and to cash out on a high - usually in the short term. Private investors are no fools either and spy profit to be made in broadcast and media provided there is scale. One need only look to consolidation in other parts of the market – the private investment-led management at acquisitive Imagine Communications being one example.

The pending closure of a sale by Crestview of all its shares in NEP to Carlyle Group must be seen in this context, although there is no sign that Carlyle, an NEP investor since 2016, will slow down. Buying companies in adjacent technical areas or geographies is often a short cut to expansion, as opposed to organically building in house.

NEP’s sheer scale offers security for clients and provides insurance for its own business, Rabbitt explained to Broadcast in a 2015 print interview: “If we were just a mobile business or operating in a single territory, that would concern us, but our strategy makes us a safer bet.

”Our coverage of multiple geographies and services allows us to have a more balanced portfolio. Our scale allows us to work with suppliers and manufacturers to attain the best kit at the best price, and to move assets and personnel around for a consistency of service.”

At the same time, NEP is looking to innovate remote production over IP ushering in a more managed services and connectivity led play than the old approach of hardware plus crew.

The Rise Of The PTZ Camera

Broadcast Bridge 

A few years ago, remote Pan Tilt Zoom (PTZ) cameras were regarded as being low quality and not suitable for professional use. Thanks to the advances in sensor, IP technology, the introduction of fanless designs and optical image stabilisers, the balance has been tipped in favour of remote cameras as an industry standard.

https://www.thebroadcastbridge.com/content/entry/12065/the-rise-of-the-ptz-camera

Sales of professional PTZ cameras are to grow by 37% over the next three years to 2021 finds Futuresource Consulting, as companies from across the broadcast, pro video and AV spectrum look for alternative, cost-effective ways to produce video.

Non-traditional camera vendors like NewTek and Ross Video now have PTZ camera lines. As budgets tighten, more and more broadcasters are looking for an all-in-one option. PTZs deliver on the need for high quality visuals and integrate extremely well into automated environments where shots and looks can be reproduced daily.

The Broadcast Bridge analyses the rise of the PTZ.

There are multiple reasons for the recent rise in demand for PTZ cameras in broadcast and entertainment. 

“These cameras have a very modest size and footprint and are therefore well suited for use in smaller studios or areas where space is at a premium,” says Ross Video’s EMEA marketing manager Stuart Russell. “They can also be hidden away in furniture or mounted on walls and ceilings to save on space or get more creative/unusual shots. Historically, these cameras have been less suited to broadcast applications because of their image quality, but we’ve seen recent improvements in the technology here, and these developments have helped to make these cameras more powerful and versatile tools for content creators.”

While we are still beholden to the lens that the camera comes with, sensors themselves have advanced to the point where colour can be manipulated and cameras can be shaded with the same technology as used in traditional broadcast cameras. Three chip PTZs offer many of the same features as broadcast cameras, with a lower price point and robotic movement built in, and this creates the opportunity for a lower cost studio production.

“In some scenarios PTZ have entirely replaced a manual operator, but some would say that this is at the cost of creativity,” says Russell. “However, this is probably less important in many situations such as news reporting or interview spaces, where automation allows for a consistent product day-in, day-out.”

Bryce Button, Director of Product Marketing, AJA Video Systems suggests demand can be attributed in part to a desire among broadcasters and entertainment venues to improve the audience experience.

“PTZ cameras can be inconspicuously placed throughout a studio or event space without obstructing audience views,” he says. “Furthermore, PTZ cameras give you more flexibility in the type of angles you can capture. Also, a number of PTZ cameras leverage Ethernet, which is appealing to broadcasters and AV professionals for simpler cabling. In the case of AJA’s RovoCam, HDBaseT technology supports transmission of high-quality 4K video, audio and control over a single category cable.”

Arguably the primary reason for ascendancy of demand for PTZ cameras in all production spaces is the need to do more with less. Video technology has advanced to the point where relatively affordable PTZ cameras can deliver ‘close enough’ and even equivalent results compared to considerably more expensive studio and ENG cameras. When you add that overall cost-effectiveness with the flexibility of installation, and the ability to automate and remotely control the PTZ cameras, the benefits multiply.

“You can add more cameras in more places and get more creative with your content, without having to account for a dedicated operator for every camera in your budget or logistics,” says Jason Pruett, NewTeks product marketing manager.

“When integrated with control systems that support not only joystick control, but also named and saved presets, motion presets, dynamic and programmable auto-zoom and other sophisticated features, PTZ cameras can perform as well as many human operators,” says Rushworks president Rush Beesley. “Reduction of labour cost is driving all markets, and PTZ cameras support automated production with little or no sacrifice in production quality, while dramatically reducing production cost.”

In general, the cameras are less expensive, smaller, lighter, quieter, and have longer zoom lenses. With the ability of many to support PoE and/or NDI, remote controllability of these high quality cameras makes them suitable and appropriate for virtually any production venue.

“Most PTZ cameras don’t have the granularity of motion and smoothness that producers need for ‘on-air’ moves,” says Beesley. “In that case, the cameras are good for going quickly to presets, then using joysticks to correct positioning as needed. High production value comes from putting ‘cameras in motion’, both zooming and dollying. A PTZ camera on an inexpensive dolly, for example, provides the level of production quality that most producers seek.”

PTZ cameras can also facilitate UHD (4K), Full HD and SD, all via IP. From fixed-rig TV productions, to live streaming and corporate use in auditoriums, PTZ remote cameras support the most difficult of shooting conditions in both indoor and outdoor situations.

“Since PTZ cameras were first brought out, they have developed a lot, making them more suited to live events and streaming,” says Oliver Newland, UK Marketing Manager, Panasonic ProAV. He cites Panasonic’s new 4K integrated remote camera AW-UE150, which offers 4K 60p capture – a first for a broadcast-class PTZ.

“It’s this next generation of PTZ camera with a step-up in resolution, lensing and interfacing presents a clear 4K upgrade path and a new generation of workflow for such premium PTZ applications as high-end enterprise, broadcast and productions applications,” he says.

Reality Show

The use of remote cameras has become increasingly popular in recent years and have changed our televisual tastes over the last decade. Great examples of this are the 24 hours in and the Educating series on Channel 4 which is almost entirely shot on remote PTZ cameras.

The BAFTA Award winning series offers a window into a modern British secondary school, following teachers and students to give a full perspective of school life today. The cameras are programmed and operated by Roll to Record for production company Twofour.

“Many would agree that one of the most heartfelt, striking UK television moments of the last decade, was the moment Yorkshire secondary school student, Musharaf Asghar overcame his severe stammer before facing his GCSE oral exam on the 2013 series, Educating Yorkshire,” says Newland. “To capture such a genuine moment of television, Musharaf had to be in his classroom with his teacher, blissfully unaware or at least uninhibited by the subtle Panasonic remote cameras filming his moment which would captivate the UK in the Educating Yorkshire series finale. The moment had to be real and it was just that.”

The growth in popularity of the big reality productions, shows no sign of abating. In the UK, shows such as First Dates, produced by Twenty Twenty, makes use of Panasonic PTZs. While Garden Productions deploys PTZ kit in both 24 Hours in Police Custodyand 24 Hours in A&E.

The UK’s summer hit of 2017 and 2018, ITV Studios’ Love Island, uses up to 70 Panasonic PTZ cameras. OB company NEP integrated the cameras for use both within the villa and in the grounds outside, hidden behind mirrors and concealed in a number of different ways to capture the most true-to-life material possible from the contestants.

Rental house and specialist camera maker Camera Corps’ experience of reality shows with heavy usage of remotely controlled PTZ (Focus) includes Fame Academy and The Match each using more than 20 cameras all controlled from a dual operating position (two camera operators could control any of the cameras). The operating position was situated in the production gallery with vision control via a separate panel in the engineering area.

Starting in 2008 on ITV’s hugely popular reality show I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here Camera Corps supplied over 40 cameras for 'the jungle' set in Australia all controlled from a production gallery 700 metres distant.

“What has changed is the ease of installs, making rigging times much shorter,” says David Sisson, Managing Director, Camera Corps. “PTZF camera systems like our Q-Ball range up to and including the recently introduced Qx are very easy to install and integrate into a multi-camera system. An operator can work with up to 96 cameras via a single Camera Corps control unit and also drive the router to change the operators' monitors. The system is very simple to set up, in fact almost plug-and-play. You just give each camera a unique ID and then operate over IP or tried and tested Camera Corps audio data.”

He adds, “The corporate market, incidentally, is becoming much more ambitious these days to the point where demand terms of production facilities and technical quality is now on a par with broadcast. We are seeing strong demand from both sectors of the business.”

Studio Automation

Automation has allowed studios to be controlled by a single operator, or no operator at all. A sequence of shots can be activated by the click of a mouse. Panasonic has built up a number of collaborations with industry partners such as Tecnopoint and Moviecom, to create robotic systems, new protocols and tracking systems making this level of integration easier.

A number of facilities create one central control station for camera operation. For instance, using AJA RovoControl software, one person can control multiple RovoCams through an easy to operate GUI on a single PC.

PTZ camera automation can take a number of different forms in the context of a broadcast production workflow. It can be as easy as configuring simple presets that an operator can use to adjust settings automatically or maneuver a PTZ into position for shot without having to manually control the movement. An experienced operator may hold the responsibility of controlling multiple PTZ cameras simultaneously—often from a single controller. Some PTZ automation doesn’t require interaction from an operator at all, as camera commands can be attached to macros that respond to real-time production system operations.

In terms of PTZ camera advancements, AJA is seeing higher quality optics, simpler control and cabling via innovations like HDBaseT alongside a continued shift to IP.

“A number of higher raster sensors have also emerged,” Button says. “Even though a majority of professionals are delivering in HD, working with a higher raster sensor from the start gives you higher quality HD in the long run and allows you to highlight a portion of the picture you might want to extract from for HD.”

NewTek points to the wave of manufacturers like itself and Panasonic, Lumens, Marshall, and PTZ Optics integrating the NDI protocol into PTZ cameras for direct input over the network into IP video workflows.

“Combine this with the integration of POE+ technology facilitating single-cable connectivity for video, audio, power, and control, and PTZ cameras make for a very compelling solution for cost-conscious broadcasters at every level who are increasingly turning to network infrastructure for their video operations,” says Pruett.

In Sum

Broadcasters and production companies are constantly exploring new ways to maintain quality and increase productivity while reducing operating costs, and that process is especially critical today as viewers seemingly can’t get enough content. Moving towards remote operation and automated production is helping them meet those demands—and PTZ cameras are a key enabling technology. They are relatively affordable, and offer the professional quality, flexibility, and convenience needed to do more with often much less.

Round Up The Latest PTZ Kit

Ross Video’s principal product is the PIVOTCam line of PTZs. The entry level PIVOTCam-20 offers serial control, 20x zoom, and excellent visuals in low light. It just introduced PIVOTCam-SE which adds IP control, power over Ethernet, Gen Lock input, and 4K streaming. The optical stability of the unit has been enhanced with the addition of a second arm, ensuring a clean and stable image, even on the tightest shots provided by the 23X optical zoom.

AJA’s RovoCam ($2550) offers a Sony UltraHD sensor that gives users the ability to extract an HD raster from source and even explore ePTZ pans and tilts from a stationary camera as you scan the original UltraHD raster. Paired with free RovoControl software for macOS, Windows and Linux, AJA’s RovoCam supports ePTZ for moving an HD 1080p box around an UltraHD frame, allowing pan and tilt for HD output.

Panasonic claims the industry first 4K 50p, HDR integrated PTZ camera. The AW-UE150 includes 4K interfaces 12G-SDI, HDMI, Optical Fibre and IP which supports HDR mode. In addition, the €11,000 camera can simultaneously output both 4K and Full HD.

It’s the new flagship for Pana’s PTZ range and is the first in its class to feature 4K 50p and a wide viewing angle of 75.1 degrees horizontally along with 20x optical zoom and 32x intelligent zoom (in HD mode). The camera allows up to three Full HD crops from the single 4K image canvas.  This offers greater flexibility and, alongside its compact size, makes it ideal for more challenging camera locations. A remote control unit priced €4,500 offers a large LCD screen for monitoring and menu settings.

“It is quite unique and cutting edge,” said Sivashankar Kuppusamy, Marketing Manager EMEA for Panasonic. “Its usability is the best on the market and it can control both the cameras and the crop feature, allowing users to manage several video feeds out of each camera. When combined with the new camera control unit we feel sure that operators will have a remote camera solution that gives them the best quality achievable in remote camera systems for all kind of markets from corporate installations to very demanding reality TV use.”

Rushworks offers several alternatives for PTZ production control. The PTX Universal PanTilt heads provides a pan and tilt base with VISCA or DMX control. The Model 1 supports smaller cameras like the Blackmagic Micro Studio Camera 4K, AJA RovoCam, and Canon XA-35. The Model 2 supports larger cameras like the URSA Mini, RED, ARRI, and a number of DSLR offerings.

Its 3n1 PTZ features an HD-SDI camera with 20x optical zoom, a second HD-SDI built-in camera with fixed wide lens, and the ability to track a subject in motion. The smaller, single camera option has the same optics and lens, but with a 6” x 6” footprint.

Mobile Viewpoint has two new products, NewsPilot and IQ Sports Producer each using Artificial Intelligence and either PTZs or fixed lens to automate the low-cost delivery of content from remote locations.

NewsPilot can be used in studio environments or in the field to automate news production without the need for camera crew or a director. For example, smaller broadcasters or independent reporters and producers could use NewsPilot for live field news and event reporting, or in-studio news and interview production.

It consists of three PTZ cameras and the firm’s Automated Studio control box. It also includes CameraLink, a robotic arm which can move a 3kg PTZ camera much like a traditional dolly arrangement, offering the same camera control normally associated with high quality news productions.

The main elements of IQ Sports Producer are a fixed-position 24MP 180° camera that can cover an entire field of play, a dedicated appliance with Mobile Viewpoint’s AI engine and IQ Sport Producer Software, and connection to the LinkMatrix management dashboard. The AI selects which of the camera’s four 6MP lenses to use given the position of play during a match or game. Originally used in the defence industry to track missiles, the AI evolved first as a means to capture sport training sessions and is now used to track players, balls or other objects during a live match or game.

Twenty years ago very few systems were available with the integrated camera and zoom lens offered in the Camera Corps’ Q-Ball. They required a lot of additional equipment to make them work. Control systems that work over IP have also made an impact on these installations as data routing is now an off-the-shelf product. According to Camera Corps, a key strength of the Q-Ball series is its very smooth pan and tilt mechanism, including high-precision acceleration and deceleration. These features are especially useful in live environments because they allow accurate on-air follow shoots. It says its clients in the television news sector are also making increased use of PTZ and PTZF cameras because these allow fast setup and provide greatly extended shooting options.

The NewTek NDI PTZ Camera was the first camera on the market to natively support NDI for direct IP workflow integration. Since then, other manufacturers have moved forward with integrating native NDI support into their PTZ cameras, including Panasonic, Lumens, Marshall, and PTZ Optics, with more expected to be announced in the future.

“The quality of the NewTek PTZ cameras is great in terms of picture image, there are a lot of controls internally to allow you to get the best out of each situation. Like most PTZ, they can initially suffer from focus drift in poor light conditions, but again, planning out your shots in advance and locking of focus can resolve this,” says Mike Barker, IET.tv Production Manager.  IET.tv uses NewTek’s PTZ cameras to film technical conference content for the Institution of Engineering and Technology, either as a standalone camera or to compliment a manned camera.

BirdDog claims the world’s first PTZ Controller for its range of NDI-enabled PTZ cameras. The models P100, P200, A200 and A300 all feature BirdDog’s custom silicon NDI chip offering 16ms latency and a Sony CMOS backlit sensor. The PTZ Keyboard features NDI and NDI | HX support and is the only controller with audio intercom support over NDI. The Keyboard allows users to discover, connect and control the full range of NDI enabled cameras. The models are capable of withstanding extreme operating temperatures between -40°C to +60°C, and even feature a rain wiper to keep water off the lens in wet outdoor locations.

Application

Texas A&M’s Reed Arena features five AJA RovoCam UltraHD/HD HDBaseT cameras installed throughout the space that give basketball fans a fresh perspective of each game. The compact block cameras capture in-stadium footage of athletes and fans, which is displayed on a 54’ x 24’ video board, one of the largest among NCAA Division 1 schools. Strategically located under the tip-off, under the video board, on top of each basket, and on top of the production booth in Reed Arena, the cameras capture 1080 HD video from UltraHD sensors, and are mounted to PTZ heads, except one of the centrally mounted cameras. Each live feed is sent to a PC running VISCA-based command control software in the production booth, where a team member controls the camera moves. Zoom controls are used for close-ups on players and the crowds, with iris controls used to adjust light for shots with shadows. 

Internet giants dominate IBC with virtual presence

content marketing for Rohde Schwarz 

IBC2018 might not go down as a classic in terms of ground-breaking point product release but it marked a definitive shift away from legacy broadcasting and engineering to new models based on software as a service.

A year ago, investment in virtualized systems and IP chains was held up pending the settlement of standards and cloud technology maturation. Now practical implementation of heavy lifting infrastructure such as playout from datacentres is being treated with greater confidence.

https://www.rohde-schwarz.com/uk/solutions/broadcast-and-media/always-on-blog/posts/10-18-ibc-review_250063.html

Vendors have had to adapt by emphasising their ability to manage software defined systems migration as a service, allowing broadcasters to concentrate on their core content generation and audience marketing activities.

Digital players dominated the IBC Conference, where representatives from YouTube, Netflix, Eurosport and Viacom Digital Studios emphasized the symbiotic relationship between old and new media. YouTube and Netflix for example spy growth in partnership with payTV platforms and the main TV set; VDS and BBC Worldwide are among those emphasizing shortform premium produced content for social media distribution.

Across the show, Google, Amazon and Microsoft were everywhere, the new back end into which content production and distribution systems are being plugged. Much of this will be automated as machine learning and AI-derived tools prove their value in delivering more content for less cost.

There are words of warning though, given the sheer scale of these organizations. Broadcaster Channel 4, for example, was concerned that if voice assistants becomes the new TV interface then it risks losing control over the way its content is presented. All content owners want more data about audience interaction with their content too and are urging greater sharing by digital gatekeepers like Amazon and Google.

There remain significant challenges with OTT too, not least the latency of live streaming although the BBC’s renowned R&D team claimed to have cracked this in an IBC paper. UHD HDR adds further complexity and will be one reason why satellite remains a core component of distribution for many broadcasters beyond 2030.

8K UHD viewed as a distraction by some with the serious business of 4K HDR to cement. NHK may be beginning Japanese domestic transmissions of Super HiVision in less than three months and is starting to look out of place in IBC’s ‘Future’ zone but no-one seriously expects it to be exported any time soon.

A key application for 8K could be 360-degree video streamed over 5G for which a more efficient video compression is a key enabler. To tackle this, development has begun on a major new family of video compression standards from MPEG and VCEG (Visual Coding Experts Group). The Joint Video Experts Team (JVET), a collaborative team formed by ISO/IEC MPEG and ITU-T Study Group 16's VCEG are working on Versatile Video Coding (VVC), with the target to complete by 2020. It is promised, like MPEG 2, MPEG4 before it, to be 50% more efficient than its predecessor - HEVC.

The picture is decidedly fuzzy. HEVC has almost achieved critical mass of support but concerns about its total licensing cost continue to make it difficult for potential adopters, particularly video streamers, to determine an accurate business model. When the VVC standard is completed in 2020 it will face a market that that is more complex, confused and cautious than that experienced by the three previous generations of standards: MPEG-2, H.264/AVC and HEVC.

The situation with codecs appears to be symptomatic of a general reduction in commitment to international standards, which will probably accelerate as more and more aspects of the system become software-based. This will tend to allow more rapid and frequent enhancements, but it is also likely to increase the risk of compatibility problems.

AI is is taking over live production

RedShark News

At IBC, AI could spell job loss and a possible creative vacuum. Where will AI go now?

https://www.redsharknews.com/business/item/5845-ai-is-is-taking-over-live-production

Let’s get this straight. Ninety-nine per cent of all the product in media and entertainment claiming to be AI is not AI. So says Yves Bergquist a researcher in AI and neuroscience at the Entertainment Technology Center in Hollywood. He’s right of course. Very little if any application touted as intelligent at IBC is cognitively aware.

Bergquist’s own definition of AI is a bit of a mouthful: “AI is the design of optimal behaviour of agents in known or unknown computable environments,” he says. “The ability to map the world and to act as an autonomous agent is key.”

So, autonomous cars or game-playing computers are AI but automated media tagging, signal diagnostics and video search systems are not, yet these comprise the bulk of AI applications being introduced to media production.

Regardless of being truly intelligent or not, there is a need for tools to automate and speed up the mundane parts of the process in order to get more of the video which is already being captured streamed to online platforms and social networks. It’s the digital media equivalent of robots on the auto assembly line. And inevitably that means loss of jobs although everyone couches that in terms of cost efficiency or streamlining.

Global worth

AI could deliver $13 trillion more cash to the global economy by 2030, putting its contributions to growth on par with the introduction of the steam engine, if you believe consultants McKinsey. It expects about 70 percent of companies regardless of sector to adopt at least one form of AI in the next decade.

The BBC will be one of them. Its R&D division is exploring AI to try and increase the scale of the Corporation’s live event coverage. Its research, which won the IBC Best Conference Paper Award, explains how it developed a system that produces an edited video package by selecting and sequencing crops from high-resolution cameras. It points out that the results are then “tweaked by a human operator” such as adjusting the frequency it cuts between different crops.

Many production tasks are fundamentally about recording, processing and transmitting information. Yet editing programmes is a deeply creative role.

“Sorting through assets to find good shots isn't the best use of the editor's time - or the fun, creative part of their job,” explains project lead Mike Evans. “We think that AI could help to automate this for them.”

He adds that this technology will be suitable not just for major production companies like the BBC, but minor sports producers which need to increase visibility, and even vloggers who want to improve their online presence.

Automated live production

Mobile Viewpoint, for example, has launched VPilot which uses AI to automate live to web production for broadcasters, as well as journalists, radio shows and bloggers.

VPilot consists of three PTZ cameras and software which is able to mimic a human director by analyses audio signals (such as microphone levels), video images, and other sources such as autocue and rundown scripts, to identify which camera to switch to and control. The software automatically points cameras and controls shots to track and focus on TV presenters.

Adobe is making AI a central component of its Creative Cloud editing and finishing platform with systems for facial and object recognition. Adobe Premiere uses can also now make use of a plug-in from GrayMeta that provides metadata around people, landmarks, logos, objects and specific moments. GrayMeta’s John Motz claims this to be “an extraordinary time-saver” compared to scrubbing through content manually.

There isn’t a media asset management company which hasn’t co-opted AI into its workflow, Prime Focus, Primestream and Tedial among them. Avid for example has a partnership with Microsoft for users of Media Composer and other Avid software to work with Microsoft AI’s on content stored in the cloud, again to speed production.

AI is currently expensive to implement because in order to work properly it needs to be trained on a large volume of data which is relevant to each organisation. Taking an AI algorithm off the shelf just won’t work. Dalet for example has taken a best of breed approach in which it will train multiple AI engines on the dataset of studio-based news and sportscasters in order to filter and refine results. The end game is to produce more content, more relevant content and with fewer people.

It is telling that, whereas IBC’s Hall 7 used to be the place to find the latest really creative content production techniques from the likes of Avid or Autodesk that the biggest booth is taken over by IBM. It is flogging a number of technologies but AI is high on its list having demonstrated applications in the automated assembly of highlights for US PGA Golf and Wimbledon earlier this year.

Discovery’s Eurosport is also working to introduce more machine learning to pump out more personalised golf, tennis and Olympics content but says it wants to “balance the algorithm with editorial curation”. The risk from its point of view is that if viewers are only served what they think they want they will end up in a bubble and miss out on all the other content that Discovery wants subscribers to consume.
Netflix is perhaps the most advanced in the industry at attempting to hack the cognitive relationship between stories and audiences in order to fine tune its originals production and its recommendations.

AI startup Corto is attempting to go beyond Netflix by automatically extracting and then mapping every aspect of a piece of content including values such as white balance and frame composition to the emotional reaction a viewer has on watching it. It is doing the latter by using MRI scans to literally hack the brain.

“We will use MRI scans to measure brain activity to infer what emotional response a character or narrative has,” explained Bergquist, who is also Corto’s CEO. “That really is the ultimate - there is no greater level of granularity beyond this.”

Navigating the music minefield

Broadcast

Whether to use library music, commercial tracks or commission a bespoke score depends on your budget, genre and the show’s potential for overseas sales.

https://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/home/navigating-the-music-minefield/5133011.article

Producers searching for the right music for a programme face of plethora of choices. Library music is usually the easiest and cheapest option, but a bespoke composition will likely deliver more creative flare.

The trade-off is in time and cost. Commercial music is the most expensive option, but can be just right for certain shows.

To take one example: the Ed Sheeran song Galway Girl credits nine writers, including Sheeran, so if a producer wanted to use it in a show, they would need permission from all nine writers – and, potentially, nine different publishers.

“If, during the process of trying to clear a song, one of the copyright holders demands more money, then you have to pay the other copyright holders the same amount,” says Simon Pursehouse, director of music services at specialist commercial music publisher Sentric. “It can get very expensive.”

Sentric, he says, will only put forward tracks that fi t the producer’s budget: “£10,000 won’t buy you a Kanye West track but we have up-and-coming artists with a similar vibe that might just work.”

ITV2’s Love Island, for example, used Sentric tracks from artists including Arlissa and Rothwell.

Programmes that are only for UK broadcast are covered by blanket licencing deals for production, commercial and commissioned music, administered by music bodies PRS, MCPS and the PPL, the latter of which looks after the owners of master recordings – typically the record companies.

The rates are negotiated by the bodies with the broadcasters and depend on factors including audience share. Producers need only clear payment for use after the event – provided broadcasters report what music they have used.

Some licences are charged on a transactional basis with set rates per cue. The Independent Production Company licence from PRS – used by indies to clear music used in programmes made for Channel 4, Channel 5 and S4C – is an example of this.

“However, with more and more shows destined for overseas sale, the model is shifting to one where producers will clear rights for all territories and pay up front rather than worry about licencing afterwards,” says Pursehouse.

Drama Republic’s Wanderlust for BBC1 and Netflix followed this route, with tracks including Submarine by Jelani Blackman and Message by Jamie Woon.

“As SVoD services like Amazon Prime and Netflix evolve, they are beginning to cover the music rights for bought-in content themselves,” says BMG Production Music senior manager of sales and marketing Michael Cromwell.

“Ultimately, the most important factor for an indie when their content is being broadcast worldwide is for the music to be clearable in all territories,” he adds. “Programmes that TX in the UK with commercial music and are then sold worldwide have to have all of that music stripped and replaced with production music.

“As a result, to save time, more productions are putting production music in the UK version, so that it is clear to be used worldwide.”

Faced with wrangling multi-territory rights for a recent doc series, Spring Films chose a different route. “We’d used commercial music played and recorded by local bands from the north-east, which gave exactly the right sound and style to the films,” says managing director Richard Melman.

“Following UK transmission, however, we had to strip it all out and replace it with specially composed music for international distribution, as it was significantly cheaper to do it that way. We simply could not afford the global, all-media fees. “Unfortunately, that’s what a distributor requires in order to sell without restrictions.”

Looking for originality

When it comes to licenced music, the holy grail is to find something that doesn’t sound like licenced music, according to Melman.

“All too often when you are searching, it seems to be ‘drum pattern number 7 with arpeggio strings number 12 in 32 variations’,” he says. “We look for originality, simplicity of licensing and a company that understands our needs.”

BMG, for instance, realised that creatives were finding it difficult to pinpoint exactly what music they wanted and were using commercial tracks as a reference.

“So we co-created a music searching tool, Music Matcher, that can take any YouTube link, audio fi le or even video fi le to analyse the waveform of a track and find something similar within our catalogue,” says Cromwell.

Turning to a composer may be more expensive in terms of up-front time and cost but provides greater flexibility as deals tend to be made directly with the artist. Under UK and EU copyright law, half of performance income goes directly to the composer, with the other half going to the music publisher, though this share is transferable.

Indeed, some indies are looking to retain rights to music composed for their series to add another revenue stream when selling their content worldwide.

“If the producer wants to buy out a composer’s share [of copyright] then you will usually charge more per minute because you are losing publishing rights,” says Anne Nikitin, who has scored episodes of BBC2’s Natural World, Channel 5’s Banged Up Abroad and Netflix true-crime series Captive.

“If the show doesn’t have much budget, then you usually agree to keep the copyright. But you can also share a percentage of the copyright with the producer. It’s negotiable.”

With 50% up for grabs, the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers & Authors (Basca) has a warning for artists and producers.

“It is becoming an increasingly common practice, and in our view bad practice, for commissioners and production companies to insist that they take all of the publishing,” says Basca chair Crispin Hunt. “But insisting they are credited as a writer is even worse. It is deceitful and unethical.”

In response, a spokeswoman for Pact says the indie body has “always had a good working relationship with the music unions and guilds”, adding: “In fact, the Incorporated Society of Musicians has just asked us for a collective agreement.”

BRITANNIA: TAKING INSPIRATION FROM MASSIVE ATTACK

“With Britannia, we wanted to find a composer who not only has a very original, contemporary sound but could also handle a classical score,” says Vertigo Films producer James Richardson.

His choice was Neil Davidge, the regular producer for the group Massive Attack, whose album Mezzanine had been used as a temp score in the edit.

“We thought it would be great to have a type of sound that counters this strange period drama every way we could,” he says.

Off-the-peg tracks could never deliver the musical complexity of a series of Britannia’s scope, he adds: “With any big-scale show, you need a fully composed score to join the pieces together, deal with emotions and move from one shade to another.

With Britannia, the soundtrack had to be supple enough to cope with the visuals, which range from grandiose and massive to very intimate and everything in between. You need someone to design that and help take the audience on that journey.”

THE COMPOSER’S VIEW

“Producers are increasingly savvy about how to work with a composer on a smaller budget,” says composer Anne Nikitin.

 “If the music budget is tight, they might ask for only 15 minutes of composed music per episode, but as long as they receive a score with bespoke themes that fi t the brief, they can expand its usage throughout the show by using stems [audio fi les split into individual music tracks].”

For Netflix doc series Captive, Nikitin was briefed to write 20 minutes of music per episode, which included bespoke themes (to give each episode a specific identity), as well as more general themes to tie the series together.

The tracks were recorded and mixed with live instruments and delivered with stems so that the editors could then use them across the series.

Nikitin’s original brief for forthcoming BBC1 period drama Mrs Wilson was for a traditional piano score, but having watched the rushes and met with the director as the series moved into post, a creative decision was made to compose for strings.

“It’s good to discuss ideas during pre-production – usually after reading the script – but quite often it’s not until you start watching the first cuts in the edit that you get more of a sense of what kind of music will work,” she says.

“One of my bugbears is that production companies are unaware of how much it costs to record. It’s not just hiring a studio and players – you need an orchestrator and someone to prep the files for the session as well as a mixer. These costs add up.

RISE OF THE MACHINES: THE USE OF AI MUSIC

While nothing can yet compare to human creative input, artificial intelligence will increasingly be used to churn out quick and cheap music tracks, with a potential impact on the library music businesses.

“AI-created music occasionally captures the essence of something good, but seems to miss the point on some human, emotional or production level,” says Platinum Music director Nick Vince.

“The cautionary tale of technology is that it rarely offers a genuine shortcut, however glorious its presentation may be,” says Warner/Chappell Production Music creative director Roberto Borzoni.

“Most of our best work comes from understanding someone beyond the brief. AI can’t currently juggle the varied demands of our clients.”

As in other areas of the industry, AI will aid library searches with automated metadata tagging and suggestions to clients. Furthermore, AI tools such as Humtap and Popgun are emerging for use by musicians for instrument modelling and composition.

The technology also raises an issue surrounding transparency on how algorithms are trained. If, for example, audio from music libraries is used to train an AI music model, the AI would technically possess an ‘essence’ of the writing style of all the composers who were analysed in the training data.

“Any independent company profiting from this, even if the music generated by their AI is technically original, would effectively be profiting, indefinitely, from the influence of those composers’ work,” says Vince.

What's the score with AI music

Broadcast

Either as an aid to composition or as an automated soundtrack generator, AI is already a force to be reckoned with in the music industry. In January, French songwriter Benoît Carré (stage name Skygge) created his album Hello World using Sony’s AI Flow Machines.

https://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/tech/whats-the-score-with-ai-music/5133094.article#.W7J1kGLlUTM.twitter

In June, experimental film Zone Out was scripted, directed and edited entirely by an AI called Benjamin, with its score generated by algorithms.

Facebook, Spotify and Google are directing large-scale projects at giving artists machine-learned songwriting recommendations or enabling non-musicians to compose customised instrumental tracks at the press of a button.

If Mozart could apply mathematical formula to perfect harmony in classical music, then surely a computer can be programmed to create something at least proximate.

‘Functional music’ is considered the prime market for AI-made compositions, for everything from ads for TV and radio to corporate presentations and social media. “Most investment in [music] AI is focused on the functional space,” says Stephen Phillips, chief executive of Brisbane-based AI music company Popgun.

“Demand is driven by customers who want the speed of creating music on-demand, the ownership of all rights and the convenience of being able to control the track in a much tighter way.”

“In any application where the music is mechanical – such as playlists for a shopping centre – AI will dominate,” predicts Sebastian Jaeger, chief executive and founder of Brighton-based ‘adaptive music library’ Filmstro. “That’s not a comment on the quality of the music, simply of its function.”

The trend is set to quickly extend beyond this, to embrace production music for TV, according to Universal Music vice-president of global digital business James Healy.

At Music’s Smart Future, an event run by record industry trade body BPI, he warned: “If you’re writing library music, corporate background music, [AI] is going to start eating your lunch sooner rather than later.”

It’s possible for AI to create the entire music score for a movie, as demonstrated by the producers of Zone Out, which employed Soho-based AI composition company Jukedeck to create the music for the short film.

Bloomberg also used Jukedeck to score eight-part digital series Art + Technology, which was released in May.

The main attractions of AI music are a combination of being able to get something written almost instantaneously to match the brief and precise length required, and the price – global royalty-free licences cost as little as 80p and full copyright costs from £150.

“Producers are able to customise the track to an exact length far quicker than searching stock music for a track that still needs an edit to fit,” explains Jukedeck chief executive Ed Newton-Rex.

“Users can pick mood, style, tempo, duration and when the climax should peak. The system generates a score in 20 seconds and it is delivered as an mp3. Plus, they know the music they create has not been used anywhere else.”

There’s no threat yet to professional custom compositions at the high end of drama and features but, as elsewhere in broadcast, AI’s early potential is seen as reducing the cost and time required to make smarter decisions or meet tight budgets.

Numerous start-ups are emerging with variations on the customisable music theme. Filmstro’s app creates soundtracks by allowing users to control the momentum, depth and power of royalty-free instrumentals using browser-based ‘sliders’.

“We have taken the major building blocks of music and made them keyframed [visualised graphically], which is the working process that any film-maker is familiar with,” says Jaeger.

“Static library music comes unstuck in editing. There is no real shortcut to finding the precise clip to underscore a scene. At any point with our technology, users can bring up multiple versions, create light and shade within the track, and immediately play it back.”

Melodrive in Berlin is focused on adaptive music for interactive media like games and VR/AR experiences, a market it values at $30bn (£23bn). Adaptive music changes dynamically based on user input and/or to the emotional setting of a media experience.

For example, if the health of a character in a game decreases, the music may change from calm to tense to adapt to what’s happening in the game.

Other start-ups like Amadeus Code, Humtap and Splice act as a creative foil for songwriters and producers. By playing a few notes, Popgun’s AI will guess what might come next, resulting in a human/AI duet.

“If you wanted to train a neural network to create without any human intervention, you would first try to encode the laws of music so that the AI understands scale and keys, timbre and rhythm, and from that encode an algorithm to generate music,” says Popgun’s Phillips.

“The promise is that it might create music that we’ve never heard before.” However, no one in this field suggests AI is anywhere close to replacing humans. “The professional musicians we meet are able to discern encoded music,” says Phillips

. “You can train an AI on a catalogue of 500,000 songs from which you could derive something like a cover-band version, but it would struggle to create something novel.”

Instead, music-based AIs should be thought of as a tool, or perhaps an instrument. “The vitality of art has always been driven by technology, but there’s a snobbish attitude when something new comes along,” says Phillips, referring to the introduction of drum machines in the 1970s. “A lot of emotion and memory are tied up with how we write and receive music, none of which is present in AI,” says Newton-Rex. “People want to buy into an artist’s backstory.

At the same time, artists can make mistakes and computers can randomise, which often leads to invention.”

This calls to mind Eric Morecambe’s famous quip: “I’m playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order”; or Miles Davis’ aphorism: “There are no wrong notes in jazz, only notes in the wrong places.”

If music is subjective, in the ear of the beholder, then in the constant stream of audio churned out by an AI there is likely to be some with more universal appeal.

“Certain pop producers today are better at picking the best song from hundreds submitted,” says Phillips. “In future, a curation music supervisor will be empowered with much more choice over music created by AI, whether for chart release or a TV soundtrack. The more music you create, the more choice we have in finding our individual expression.”

LACKING EMOTION

Platinum Music director Nick Vince admits: “AI-created music occasionally captures the essence of something good, but it seems to miss the point on some human, emotional or production level. There are no clearly defined improvement vectors that define what makes a musical score great, only subtle patterns within the data.”

He says an algorithm would need to be an expert in ‘listening’ and identifying relevant areas of influence within datasets, music theory, writing, arranging, emulating live instruments perfectly (including any instrument or human voice), producing, mastering and even viewing video.

“These skills would then need to come together cohesively,” adds Vince. “In our view, we’re not anywhere near that yet, but the door is open and the AI world can, and is, moving very quickly.”

If the technology gets to the stage where genuine musical artificial intelligence is actually possible – in that it is consistently indistinguishable from the best music created by humans – artificial general intelligence itself (an algorithm that can adapt to any task and improve exponentially) may not be that far away.

In that instance, the fate of production music would be a small concern compared with the wider economic and societal implications.

Outside of composition, music companies are turning to AI to enhance other aspects of their services. Production library Platinum Music is exploring AI for automating metadata tagging and to offer “intelligent music suggestions” to clients.

In March, Warner Music acquired Canadian start-up Sodatone, which uses algorithms to improve the A&R process.

Audio Network is researching AI “for all areas of business”, including honing client search. “We see AI as another tool to augment creativity,” says director of channel strategy Nathan Leong.

“There are definitely some interesting technologies where you can feed in tunes you’ve created and play with melody or tone. But we can’t ever imagine a scenario where an algorithm would replace a composer.”

He stresses: “It’s an ethical point of principle for us. We’d want to have composer creativity at the core of what we do.”