5 Minutes with Kevin VFX

interview and words for Sohonet

article here

Kevin is a boutique VFX shop founded in 2017 by Sue Troyan, Tim Davies and Darcy Parsons specializing in high-end VFX and finishing for commercials and producing compelling imagery for any medium.

Named VFX Company of 2025 by creative arts publication SHOTS, Kevin VFX’s recent projects include working for Squarespace (Barry and Mosley), Life360 (Coffin) and YouTube TV (What A Time to Be a Live Sports Fan). The privately owned and operated company is based in LA on the Santa Monica border and employs around 30 staff, with the capacity to more than double as projects demand.

As Head of Engineering for Kevin since 2019, Graeme Back has overseen a change in infrastructure to accommodate growth and resiliency including a migration of rendering from on-prem to the cloud enabled by Sohonet.

‍Graeme, please give a little background on the decision to migrate core technology off-prem?

Kevin VFX started out based in Venice, CA in a small building with high rent and not enough power. During Covid it made sense to move to a new property in a cheaper location with double the available power.

As part of that move we added Sohonet Multiport as our primary internet connection. We started off with a 3Gb to get us up and running and as the company grew, we were able to add some staff and take on slightly bigger jobs and the flexibility of Multiport allowed us to expand to 5Gb. That allowed us to set up a 2Gb direct connect into Google which became the main point of entry for our remote artists. It also gave us a more direct connection to their virtual machines to start rendering in the cloud. We saw instant benefit to that. 

As our business grew, we added more equipment and more staff but soon ran out of power in the new building too. Power, it seems, is the Achilles heel of physical location. Whilst GPUs offer better performance, the downside of running them for rendering is that they use a colossal amount of power. At that point we saw an opportunity to relocate our equipment into a data center. This would give us access to more power so we can add more render nodes as well as giving us a better resilience to power outages in the local area.

Why choose Sohonet?

I've been familiar with Sohonet for over 20 years since my time working at The Mill in London in the late 90s. At that time The Mill was one of a number of Soho (London) post houses that came together to create the original Sohonet fast fiber connectivity.

As I moved jobs and gained more responsibility for making key technology decisions it was a no-brainer to use the company that I was familiar with. When I arrived at Kevin VFX and the decision-making buck stopped with me it was an even easier decision to take because I didn't have anyone to sell the idea to internally.

Sohonet has more resiliency than other solutions because it has more indirect backups to failure going into that data center. In the long term it allows us to be independent of our physical building. If we ever decide to relocate, in theory it's a case of just making sure we've provisioned a Sohonet connection in that new building and then we just move over our endpoint PC over IP equipment and we're connected back to our data center.

The migration was made simpler because Sohonet was able to route graphics at both locations through Google Cloud Platform. Our artists connect to HP Anywhere Teradici through an access point in GCP and then Sohonet routed the traffic to the workstation wherever it is. This means our remote artists only need to know about one connection point - it doesn't matter where their systems are. Sohonet enables the network routing to automatically connect to their workstation whether it’s on-prem or the data center. Instead of having to shut the office down and move everything in one go, we were able to move a machine at a time, and once moved and the powered back up, the artist didn't have to think about anything. They were just connecting back to their machine and unbeknownst to them the physical location of their hardware changed.

‍Your suite of Sohonet products also includes ClearView Flex and FileRunner. How do those fit into your services?

We offer color in house and work closely with other color shops as required. When we do these remote sessions for clients, the streaming between colorist and client is enabled by Clearview Flex for remote clients. We are seeing an uptake in clients actually coming into the building but also work with many advertising agencies outside of the LA region who don't come in. So ClearView comes into its own in sessions with those clients.

We use FileRunner internally when our shoot supervisors are on shoots. It allows them to transfer all stills and reference files to us quickly so we can ingest them into our pipeline. That might be done by them connecting back to the office over the Internet via Teradici or it might be done by a support person in the office physically. Then we deliver assets to clients. This tends to be their final copies of jobs that they're keeping. We send this over FileRunner for them to download and keep it on their own servers.

We like FileRunner because unlike other apps it doesn't require a plugin. In the past our clients have experienced problems when having to install apps [of competitor services] but implementing FileRunner is so smooth. There’s no plugin, it runs super efficiently. It’s just easier for our clients and easier for us.

Where do you stand in the great AI debate about whether it is a tool or a threat?

We're researching AI, learning the tools and seeing what's available. Traditionally we do a lot of pitch work for agencies to land jobs but for all the work that we put in making animatics and storyboards we see little benefit from that when we don't win the job. Potentially we could use AI to speed up the brainstorming and pitch iteration process. Also, if a client came to us with a clearer representation of what they wanted having used AI to help them visualize it then that could be beneficial too.

The twin track of thought is that I work in a company full of creative people so removing one of the principal early stages of the creative process could be a risk. So, I can see AI working both ways.

I don't think we're at the point where AI images are generally accepted as high quality, certainly not for a primetime TVC. We’re in that super noisy phase of the introduction of a new tech where developers are trying to sell it into the industry, but I think ultimately the public will decide. They will be the ultimate arbiters of taste. As it stands today, it will change the way we work but I am skeptical that fully AI generated visuals will wash away the creative craft at the heart of our business.

 

UK and US media voice political interference and self-censorship concerns

Streaming Media

article here

The Republican attempt to break the media by suing corporations like CBS and forcing editorial decisions on them will back fire, claims Roy Wood Jr, host of ‘Have I Got News For You’.

“God Bless whatever Colbert does next year with no network person to give him notes on what he can and cannot say,” Wood said at the Edinburgh TV Festival, Wednesday. “Letting him run riot on YouTube is going to create a bigger issue for this Administration in 2026, especially if he builds an audience, which I think is inevitable.

“What this Administration is eventually going to see, is that by running people out of mainstream media - the dissenters, the people talking shit back about Trump - you run them out of wherever there are rules. If Trump’s people were smart, they’d leave us alone and let us tell our jokes in places where there are guardrails.”

“Look at what [California Governor] Gavin Newsom's doing by just throwing up a couple of videos and talking back to Trump. Millions of views – and he’s not even a trained entertainer!”

Asked if he felt vulnerable to attack, Wood said, “I think vulnerable would suggest that you can't fight back. I’m not self-censoring. So long as I have a microphone, my hope is that every comedian will continue to do that.”

The assault on press freedom on both sides of the Atlantic was a major debate at the Festival which is the premier annual event for the UK TV industry.

Calling Trump's approach to media “vindictive, transactional and codependent” Matthew Belloni former editorial director of the Hollywood Reporter and Host of The Town Podcast said, “The level of capitulation, kow-towing and chaos that is going on at the top level is pretty extraordinary. Starting with ABC paying to settle the George Stephanopoulos case and then going all the way through the things that Paramount did to get their sale approved.

“After ABC paid him, the flood gates opened. He knew that he had a pressure point with all of these media companies. He is nothing if not transactional and he is going to press every single button he can.”

Wood said he believed CNN would hold the line. “I just do not see this network in any shape or form making decisions based solely on whether or not the President's going to cost us a bunch of money in court.”

However, he admitted, “We have to hold on to the key people we have left, which means for my corporation to survive it cannot afford to go to war with the President.”

Giving the agenda-setting McTaggart Lecture, James Harding the BBC’s former director of news now director of Tortoise Media warned of “chilling” political interference in BBC news coverage.

“Whatever your view of the hate speech vs freedom of speech issues, an overbearing government minister doesn't help anyone,” he said. “The hiring and firing of [the BBC director general] should not be the job of a politician.”

He also warned that the Corporation needed protecting from right wing party Reform UK which had vowed to scrap the license fee (which funds the BBC). Reform UK could win power at the next UK general election in 2029.

Alongside Wood and Belloni in the session: Trump vs. The Media, Dorothy Byrne, Former Head of News & Current Affairs, Channel 4 said, “The U.S made a big mistake in 1987 when it got rid of the Fairness Doctrine. In the UK, we should learn from this. We must not get rid of regulation. Regulation helps to bring trust because you have to have balance and in U.S media there has not been balanced. Some of that has been too liberal and they haven't listened enough to the right. Not hearing sufficient right-wing voices is an error that some of our public broadcasters here are guilty of too.”

Belloni has been reporting on the recent decision by Paramount bosses to settle a dispute with Trump over the Kamala Harris interview aired on 60 Minutes, as condition of sale to Skydance.

 “The impact of the settlements that we've seen has been calamitous for the industry,” he said. “But looked at as a business transaction trying to close an U$8bn deal it was a existential moment for the Redstone family.”

Former Paramount controlling shareholder Shari Redstone said this week the decision for her company to settle the CBS lawsuit brought by Trump was a “no-brainer” and she expressed surprise that the cost of this was only $16 million.

“They could have either stood up to Trump or they could argue for ‘paying him off’ and they chose to pay him off and get the deal done. When you're looking at this from a business perspective, and you are in the chair, you  can either fight this, and become a target for the next two years or I can give a very small amount of money for my corporation and have this go away.”

“That said, the argument for not settling is a business argument as well because if you are not one of these people who is trying close a deal to get out of the business you have to deal with that precedent going forward. If I am ABC news, I now know that if we get sued over something that we've covered, there's going to be another settlement and another and potentially endless litigation.”

On the cancelling of ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’ Belloni said he concluded that the show was losing tens of millions of dollars. “If the calculus was pure p&l it’s understandable. CBS have discussed for a long time what the future would be about their late night programming [James Corden’s show was cancelled in 2022) and when you have to sign your talent and your lead producers a year in advance they pulled the plug.

“The optics of the timing [coinciding with Colbert’s blast about Paramount’s ‘bribe’] are terrible,” he added.
 
‘South Park’ seems a different case. Paramount recently renewed a deal with it creators for $1.5 billion then Trey Stone and Matt Parker let both barrels loose on Trump’s ICE agenda.

“We can’t look to Trey and Matt as the new leaders of the resistance but we are always appreciative whenever they join the fight,” said Wood. “They are equal opportunity offenders.”

The satirical show was arguably the frontline of the ‘man-o-sphere’ when it launched three decades ago and that remains key to its appeal including among many Trump supporters. Right wing pundit Charlie Kirk has even embraced his own lampooning in the show.

“No-one wants to quite dismiss it as fake news,” said Katie Balls, Washington editor of The Times. “In that sense, they take it a bit more seriously.”

The chilling effect of law suits and defunding on US journalism could be felt in three years’ time when the presidential election cycle starts.

Byrne said that despite being “mortally wounded” news broadcasters in the US still carried out “fantastic journalism” and called on them to stand up and speak truth to power.

“Do not rely on billionaires and politicians to protect your press freedom. We have to rely on journalists to do that. Every day I read brilliant journalism coming out of the United States but if you tell the truth, you can lose your job.  I don't feel that it's terminal but journalists need to rise up together and speak about these issues in the U.S, just as I believe that journalists around the world have to rise up together and speak about the threat to journalists in Gaza. Ultimately, we have to rely on ourselves as a profession.

Wood pushed back on this with a more pessimistic view: “American journalists have no choice but to see and hear conservatives and treat their claims and concerns as valid no matter how ridiculous they are,” he said. “I do not know if there are enough American journalists that care enough about the totality of our society to sacrifice their career for the things that you're talking about, because then the question becomes how many journalists can you fire before you fire the compliant one?”

He added that if American journalists started covering Gaza with the attention it deserved this would limit their “ability to cover all of these other atrocities that are happening domestically. Which fire do you choose to put out?  I just don't know if we have enough people that are as selfless as what is needed to fix modern day journalism.”

Having recently interviewed Skydance boss David Ellison, Belloni wondered what would become of 60 Minutes. “I asked him specifically what are you going to do about 60 Minutes. He said, ‘All I want is both sides represented, down the middle.’

“That’s a very easy thing to say. Sometimes the story doesn't have obvious both sides and 60 Minutes is the number one news program in the States because it often takes an angle on a story that gives a voice to somebody or has a perspective and tells a narrative.

“When Ellison is talking about bringing in someone like Bari Weiss, who runs a quasi-reactionary conservative website, to be overseer of balance at CBS then that is asking for trouble.”

Calling the administration’s approach to media “cowardly and manipulative” Wood noted that ‘Have I Got News For You’ has had many guests from the right on the show

“It’s partly because ‘Have I Got News For You’ is a legacy show that comes from a country [the UK] where it was allowed to punch politicians in the face, so you have to honor that ethos of the show in the States.”

Belloni countered that CNN is “tanking” in ratings as a sign that US audiences prefer partisan television news. “They want Fox. They want MSNBC. They want that perspective and CNN has been caught from the moment Trump took office in no-man’s land where they're trying to hold on to that illusion of the impartial news. It's just not working.”

IBC Conference: BBC Sport’s John Murphy on the evolution of virtual studios

IBC

article here

BBC Sport’s John Murphy divulges the expert insights he gained on AR, LED volumes and camera tracking from setting up the virtual studios for Match of the Day and several major sporting tournaments.

When BBC Sport moved to MediaCity, Salford, in 2011, it arrived with the opportunity to refresh the flagship soccer highlights show Match of the Day (MOTD). Having been produced from a traditional set for its previous 47 years on air, the MOTD production soon broke ground by pioneering the use of augmented reality (AR) with camera tracking systems.

“We were guinea pigs with the use of live AR in the UK,” recalls John Murphy, BBC Sport Design Director, a post he has held since 2011. “Everything was new. Setting up tracking cameras was painful. It was a great idea from a creative point of view, but it had a lot of people in production tearing their hair out at the time.”

Through trial and error, the BBC Sport team cracked AR graphics before they ever saw how game engine technology could be used for virtual live production. “This was at IBC around 2017 and the keying against green screen was amazing. You could key objects like water bottles and fine texture-like hair in software, which we’d not really seen before.” 

BBC Sport decided to go ahead with building a virtual studio for MOTD, a move which also gave the department greater flexibility and creative freedom. It debuted in 2018. 

“We didn’t have to be stuck to one physical set or one look,” Murphy says. “It was a game-changer. We learned a lot of harsh lessons initially around how to work with game engines in the broadcast environment, but we've progressed to the point where virtual studios have become the norm for us.” 

COVERING GLOBAL EVENTS

In addition to the MOTD studio, BBC Sport also operates Studio 1 with a 9.5m x 9m footprint, which comprises a green floor and green walls along three sides. From this studio, BBC Sport hosted the Winter Olympics 2022, FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 and the UEFA Women's Euro competitions. 

Murphy notes: “It's a great business case because that was a physical space that wasn't utilised to its full potential until we added the green screen and opened up a lot more capabilities for different productions. We produce daily iPlayer content from there and now we’re using it for digital and social content more and more.” 

For coverage of the Paris Olympics and the men’s Euros from Germany in the summer of 2024, BBC Sport introduced LED screens to the sets that were built on location and had views of the Eiffel Tower and Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate. 

“For the 2024 UEFA Euros, we installed two mixed-reality presentation studio areas opposite the Brandenburg Gate: one on the roof terrace and one inside. Both used extended reality (XR), AR, and LED screens to provide a museum-themed look and feel that complemented the city’s architecture. We also displayed on-screen visuals to showcase match data and statistics for viewers.” 

In both cases, most of the gallery production and editing was performed remotely back in Salford. 

“The reality is that Paris and Berlin were the best use cases for blending the real and the virtual from a creative angle, but they probably weren’t the best from a business perspective,” Murphy says. “In terms of a business and sustainability point of view, the Women's Euros is the gold standard. We were able to give each live presentation a realistic Swiss backdrop while producing it all from the UK.” 

None of this is to say that all technical challenges have been ironed out − far from it. Green screen remains tricky to key, which is why the BBC is reportedly likely to phase that out in favour of LED volumes. 

“With a virtual studio in an LED volume, you don’t need to worry about keying. Your talent can wear what they like and, more importantly, they can see what's actually happening around them. Our talent is adept at working with green screen, but they would rather see what they are interacting with. It’s more intuitive and makes them more comfortable.” 

MURPHY’S TOP TIPS

There can be few people more experienced in working with virtual studios than Murphy. He offers these tips for others thinking of following suit. 

“One of the biggest things that people miss is the editorial and design. You can have all the latest technology available, but it’s actually getting the creative part right that is fundamental. In a sense, you’ve still got to approach it with an architectural design mindset. You've got to have people with an eye for architectural design and modelling, and your floor space has to work for people and cameras. You've also got to think about your single shots for talent because singles are the most used shot.” 

The BBC’s internal sports graphics team is small, and it tends to work with external suppliers like AE Live (for Euros 2024), Moov TV (for the Paris Olympics) and Sunset + Vine (for the Women’s Euros 2025). 

Murphy stresses the importance of putting design at the very start of the process. “You should have ideas about what you want to achieve visually rather than just using the latest virtual tech for the sake of it.” 

While camera tracking has advanced to the point where Murphy thinks it’s solid, he does warn of frame delays introduced by rendering graphics. The BBC currently use Unreal Engine as its main render pipeline, a technology that is more commonly used to build video games. This system delivers photorealistic graphics but still has to be processed on hardware used for live broadcast. This technical feature brings with it certain performance limitations, which need to be factored in as well. 

“It's still not like a box which you open and suddenly have a virtual studio,” Murphy insists. “There are a lot of things still to consider.” 

BBC SPORT AT IBC2025

Murphy’s team is in early planning for next year’s bumper summer of live sports and will use IBC2025 to scout the latest technologies as part of that preparation. 

“We've still got decisions to make from a virtual production and presentation point of view, so IBC2025 is important for us on that front. We’re discussing internally and with FIFA about how best to approach the World Cup in the USA, Canada, and Mexico. Just ahead of that, Wimbledon is another massive live event for us.” 

MOTD is changing front-of-camera presentation for the 2025-26 season. “We're not trying to reinvent the wheel creatively with it, but certainly on the back of the World Cup 2026, we'd like to have a bit of a legacy there and do something new with MOTD visually and creatively for the following season.” 

IBC Conference: Roku on the value of out-of-app discovery

IBC

article here

Watching TV is not supposed to be hard. It should be pleasurable, but the industry has tied itself in knots as content and platforms fragment then coalesce in the shift to streaming.

Roku's founding vision remains ‘All TV will be streamed’. It has gravitated from a purveyor of streaming video devices to a smart TV operating systems provider, building out from its home market of the US to be used by 90 million households worldwide every month. 

“Everyone piled into streaming in a slight panic but now we're at a stage where everyone is taking a step back and asking how do I make this work? How do I make money? How do I get the most value out of it? That’s why you’re seeing interesting combinations of services working together to create new packages and bundles.  

“It's a really interesting time of change where there's still a huge amount of viewing to linear TV channels and massive viewing to streaming-only options, plus hybrids like FAST channels which combine some of the old behaviour with some of the new delivery. The opportunity is to help consumers navigate that and find ways to make it a better experience.” 

Personalisation and discovery 

As viewers increasingly start their journeys in a digital rather than linear environment, Roku is central to the connected TV battle to control the viewing experience.  

“Sometimes a little feature can go a long way,” Price says. “A feature like ‘Continue Watching’ (now rolled out in markets including the UK and Germany) collects all the shows you’re in the middle of watching across all different apps and brings them together in one place. It takes out that cognitive load of trying to remember where you saw what show and makes the experience really simple.” 

Another feature, What to Watch, offers personalised recommendations from across different apps. “This is the way the world is going,” says Price. “Netflix has a view of what you should watch in the Netflix catalogue. Prime Video has a view, and BBC iPlayer has a view, but bringing those together for the consumer has real value.” 

Both features encourage out-of-app discovery, although Price emphasises that Roku is happy for viewers to move in and out of apps as well. 

Spinning to the other side of the coin, Price says that content owners also find it easier than ever to reach consumers. “Anyone can build an app and publish it on an app store. You don’t have to go out and negotiate carriage with different regional cable companies. The real challenge is, once the app is created, how do you launch new hits?” 

At one time you could schedule your new show in primetime on broadcast TV and know that everyone would at least be aware of it. That’s not the case with digital where shows can get lost. 

“At Roku we offer marketing tools like themed takeovers of the whole home screen to promote your show,” Price explains. “Some viewers still go straight ahead and watch whatever they're going to watch anyway, but just giving a new show oxygen ahead of launch is something that Roku works for.  

“Also, if you want to fund development of new shows you've got to make the absolute most you can out of your deep catalogue. Our algorithmic curation is one way of surfacing older, relevant content to consumers. You could also use FAST to take a successful brand and successful catalogue and create a whole linear channel around a particular piece of IP.” 

While Roku (along with other Smart TV OS providers like Samsung and LG) target becoming the default home screen for households (at least those without a pay-TV subscription), Price doesn’t necessarily view the endgame as super-aggregation. He’s not sure consumers want that. 

“The big bundle has been broken apart and consumers don’t want to go back to it, but they do still want it to be easy to get to the shows they love. People will sometimes seek out a particular brand or niche service but if you're not the biggest gorilla in town (like a Netflix or a YouTube) then your content is going to do better in an environment where it can be discovered by people who are not specifically seeking your brand.” 

The value of live sport 

One aggregation function that Roku has yet to transfer from the US to Europe is ‘Sport Zone’. This unites content held by multiple providers (in the US, this includes NBC Sports, Fox Sports, ESPN, Peacock and Paramount+) in one portal, either free to view or with a subscription. There are subzones too for particular sports. 

“Live sport is the most valuable content on TV. Most people will find the sport or team they really want to watch whichever platform it ends up on but you still want to make it as easy as you can when you just want to sit down and watch the game.” 

Price isn’t confirming whether Sport Zone will launch in Europe, but it’s likely on the cards. “In the US, sports rights are super fragmented compared to Europe but even in markets like the UK, if fans wanted to watch every match of a Premier League season they’d have to go to at least three services (TNT Sports, Sky Sports, Prime Video) with other broadcasters taking additional major soccer rights. What Sport Zone does is bring it all together so you can find the game easily and you don't have to do the work of finding which channel it’s on.” 

The company recently announced a deal with Everyone TV to integrate UK broadcaster streaming service Freely into smart TVs powered by the Roku OS. 

“It was a very natural fit that Roku would support Freely,” Price reports. “There were some complexities to the deal, but we're really pleased to find a path that enables us to continue to innovate our platform and give enough prominence to [Freely] channels and content that also meets the regulation for PSB prominence in the UK. 

“We want all TV to be streamed. You should just plug it in and watch. It should be that simple.” 

Reimagining Creative Studios: EngineLab CEO Sam Reid Talks Cloud, AI, and Virtualised ClearView Flex

 interview and words for Sohonet

article here

EngineLab launched earlier this year as a premium technology consultancy focused on providing cutting-edge cloud-based solutions for the creative industries. It is notable for being led by the team that wrote the blueprints for cloud-native studios helping to shape how creative technology operates today.

Sam Reid, CEO, EngineLab was CTO of Untold Studios where he built its infrastructure from the ground up, enabling 500+ creatives across London, LA, and Mumbai. He now guides EngineLab’s vision and growth with a focus on creative impact through technology.

EngineLab CTO Matt Herman led Psyop’s migration to a fully cloud-based workflow and co-founded Trace VFX, scaled to 1,200+ artists before its acquisition by Technicolor.

Third co-founder Daniel Goller, CRO, drives AI innovation and R&D. He holds a PhD in Engineering and worked on infrastructure efficiency and AI integration at Untold.  

As premium postproduction shifts dramatically from on-premise hardware to data center-based power and compute, EngineLab acts as the interface between cloud superscalers and the creative front end.

Hey Sam - Let’s start from the beginning - what sparked the idea for EngineLab?

S: My history is building studios and cloud technology and evangelizing in that space.  After having done that for eight years with Untold, I felt it was the right opportunity to recreate that for other budding studios wanting to spin up or people wanting to modernize their technology.

The market opportunity was right too. We could see larger studios being downsized or folding completely as a result of the pressures from Covid, the 2023 strikes and knock-on squeezes on production. Small groups would splinter away to do their own thing. I guess my colleague and I were a part of that churn happening in the industry.

Our idea was to take our expertise and experience into the market for all those other studios who are starting up, and potentially do not want to spend lots of money on equipment at the start.

At EngineLab we offer the ability for these studios to easily access Next Generation technology at a far more affordable rate than they would be able to do if they had to procure it all themselves.

‍And when it comes to the tech, what exactly does EngineLab offer studios?

We offer everything that would go into building a traditional studio. Let's say, you’re leaving a big business to start your own studio with five to ten people. You’re going to need high-powered workstations and machines with a high-quality graphics card in them and a decent amount of RAM and CPU. Not only are they pretty expensive to buy but they would take a while to arrive after you order them.  Each of those workstations needs central storage so everyone can work off the same files together. If you’re doing complex simulations like landslides or water simulations then you’re going to need a much bigger group of computers with the power to process the data. Then you need to connect them together so that every asset and file is synchronized where necessary and secure always.

These are the elements that comprise any studio. What we’re saying is that you don't need to buy anything. You can just rent them. When you get the work then you pay for use and when you enter a quiet period you don't. This opex model is replacing the traditional capex model.

At Engine lab we’re helping studios build studios tailored to their requirements. We’re onboarding them. We’re teaching them how to work in this new way and how to leverage new technology so that they work quicker and get a better result in terms of creativity. Because your machines are running faster and everything is just happening quicker you can produce more iterations on your content. More iterations, I would argue, gives a better creative outcome.

The story behind Arc Creative is an interesting one, can you tell us more about how that came together?

Our first customer is Arc Creative based in Los Angeles. When Technicolor Creative Studios closed its offices and its constituent studios in February, a number of the creative leadership and around 100 artists found a lifeline with a new venture with multi-studio VFX house Dream Machine, dubbed Arc Creative.

All of this all happened really quickly. They needed to build a studio from scratch and in very short time in order to be able to continue to work on the projects that they had been working on. That presented a good challenge for EngineLab in terms of helping them create the technology framework for them to maintain continuity of work.

Arc’s artists needed extremely high-powered workstations to perform bespoke finishing workflows with Flame. The timeline for us to set this up was aggressive but because we don't need to go out and buy anything we were able to provision machines and connectivity and have it spun up within a matter of days as opposed to the weeks or months that it would take to try and procure and implement this hardware themselves.

‍When you're building out a virtual studio, where does something like Sohonet’s ClearView Flex come in?

Sohonet offers a wide range of tools that a lot of our clients really value. The one we’ve focused on initially is the virtualised version of their review platform, ClearView Flex (VFlex) - which is a vital piece of the puzzle for us because it presents a way to get video out of the cloud. That has always been one of the biggest challenges in terms of cloud technology. In a traditional studio you’d have dedicated cables for this but over the past few years this connectivity has been virtualized and Sohonet hooked into that advance and created a product around it. We deploy VFlex in AWS, which gives us the flexibility and performance needed to meet demanding postproduction workflows.

Now you don't need a physical cable plugged into the back of a Flame going into a monitor in the room, because you can now do it over IP. You can send video over huge distances. The stream is a lot more stable and much more efficient. IP technology is also maturing, so it's just getting better to the point where I feel extremely confident going into a customer like Arc who operate with demanding deadlines and specifying Sohonet. I know they need something that works straight away and we don't have time to make this a science experiment. We need to know that we can buy something, plug it in and it will work instantly for the customer because they have projects depending on it. ClearView Flex fits in really nicely to that. I can install it quickly and it provides great value for the client because they have a robust and efficient method to view work in progress at an extremely high value point in the chain.

 

‍

So once a studio is up and running, like Arc, do you stay involved?

Exactly right. I see very little value in us going in and doing a big build of something really complex for a customer and just leaving it there. We help studios make smart, scalable technology decisions. From CTO-as-a-service to custom software development, we deliver hands-on technical leadership and solutions that integrate with any standard toolset.

Our model is to provide Next Generation technology for them to work on and an extremely capable top tier support team to maintain it. We make sure that it keeps running because the risk of downtime for a studio is that all those hundreds of artists just sit there idle. The clock is always ticking for a studio and downtime means no work but you still have to pay your team and cost can soon balloon. We should be able to do it better and cheaper relative to a studio hiring their own permanent technology team. And, as we grow our customer base we should be able to achieve some economies of scale which we would pass on to customers as well.

‍What does the immediate future hold for EngineLab?

Our bread and butter is building cloud technology for studios and I don’t see that slowing down at all. It’s something we are probably always going to do but it won't always necessarily be our core focus. That’s because the technology business is constantly changing and right now it is being continually shaken by artificial intelligence. As a tech company we can quite easily pivot to do different things and create different products. We can build custom AI tools that integrate seamlessly into creative pipelines, enhancing workflows, automating time-consuming tasks, and unlocking new possibilities. From prototype to production, we can help studios harness the latest advancements in AI. So going forward, it’s likely AI is going to form a big part of our offering that we'll be able to use to further empower studios and create more efficiencies.

 

IBC Conference: Yahoo Mail’s Harish Sarma on the “untouched territory” of broadcaster emails

IBC

article here

Yahoo Mail Vice President (VP) of Business Development and Partnerships Harish Sarma will speak on the IBC panel ‘The Power of Collaboration: How strategic partnerships are transforming broadcasting’ on 12 September.

“At the moment, emails are loosely linked to a calendar, a planner and/or a to-do list. Moreover, today’s email calendars are effectively a set of time blocks with text in them. Imagine instead if that entire experience was reinvented with the end consumer in mind. In that world, the broadcaster or IP owner could have a more meaningful conversation with its customers. For example, a marketing email highlighting upcoming events or shows could be integrated with a calendar feature to enhance discovery and attendance. 

“This is completely untouched territory. There's no real solution that exists for this yet, and that means there’s an opportunity. The key to this opportunity is changing the conversation, which starts with IBC.” 

Describing recent changes at Yahoo Mail as “an important part of the next chapter for the brand,” Sarma says the 30-year-old business operates in a field – email – that hasn’t seen innovation in decades. “Millions of people use the product every day all over the world. It’s purely functional but it doesn't necessarily bring much more to your life.  

“If I ask people about how they feel about email, they'll probably tell me that it frustrates them because of the volume of messages they receive. If it's for work, you need to process it. If it's personal, it ends up being another task to attend to on top of work. Yet, amid all the chores and chaos, sits a tremendous amount of value.” This is what Sarma, with all his expertise, has been hired to unlock. 

“Email is one of the highest utility digital products you can have in terms of the value it provides each person, but it also drives a tremendous amount of angst, and frankly, it doesn't feel like people get a lot of joy from emails. Yahoo Mail’s mission is to change the consumer experience with email. Can we keep the good stuff, eliminate the bad and change the game? That’s what caught my curiosity when joining Yahoo.” 

NBA TO TIKTOK 

As a former investment banker at Morgan Stanley who left to join the National Basketball Association (NBA), Sarma thrives when working out of the box. 

At the NBA, he initially focused on deal strategy and valuation before concentrating on commercial licensing, to build out content distribution in more than 190 international markets. “While the NBA is massively popular in the US, China, and now in France, in some countries it's still a niche sport. The challenge was how to bring value and growth to a property like the NBA in non-core markets.” 

In 2019, Sarma was recruited by Bytedance to head the Content Business Development department at TikTok at a time when the platform was starting to grow exponentially. TikTok was already a client of the NBA and Sarma doubled down on this, bringing more of the NBA's content onto the video sharing platform.  

“We ultimately built out the content function within TikTok not just for sports but also entertainment, lifestyle and gaming. Prior to this, content was categorised, but impact was evaluated based on engagement. Content that drives virality doesn't necessarily translate to what people want to be watching. It could just be what is garnering a lot of attention at a moment in time. Over time, we learned what we really needed to build was silos of high-quality content that met the niche needs of each user across content categories.” 

Additionally, Harish is also a member of the IOC Esports Commission, chairing the Platforms and Distribution sector.   

EMAIL REVOLUTION 

On the IBC panel, Sarma will be joined by executives from Snap, Sling TV and Sky, which may give some clues as to how Yahoo Mail is addressing a media and entertainment audience. 

The product is changing too. The first of many expected revamps is a catch-up feature to help users tackle inbox overload. AI-powered summaries provide scannable email previews, giving users the option to ‘delete’ or ‘keep in inbox’ with a simple tap. The final reward? A celebratory screen for users to see how many emails they deleted, and how fast they did it.  

“The idea is very simple. Can we transform the email experience to help users filter the information they need from details they do not. The catch-up feature is an AI-powered triage system that we made into a game.” 

Announced alongside the news that nearly half of Yahoo Mail users are Gen Z or Millennial, the feature rolled out to Yahoo Mail users on 12 June 2025 with an exclusive partnership with comedian, musician, actor and TikTok creator Morgan Jay and with streetwear brand Anti Social Social Club (ASSC). Snapping this offer up, Comcast has already begun transitioning all Comcast.net email accounts to Yahoo Mail’s AI-driven platform, in under two months since this initial launch.  

“There’s a misperception that email is for the older generation and our job is to debunk a lot of that because the data doesn't support it. Knowing that nearly half of our users are Gen Z or Millennial is, for most people, surprising to hear. However, we know we can leverage that to enhance the user experience. 

“Another myth is the idea that email is going to die out and be replaced by something much more efficient. Another way to look at it is: ‘What if we can evolve email to work for today’s users?’ We envision an experience where email can do more of the work of organising your personal life for you. We want to change the conversation around how email has worked, and been used, for decades,” concludes Sarma. 

YouTube streaming continues fast track to distribution domination

Streaming Media

article here

YouTube has become the UK’s second most watched streaming service, overtaking Netflix, marking a turning point in how audiences discover and consume content on TV. 

According to UK regulator Ofcom in its annual report, YouTube has become the UK's second most-watched media service, behind only the BBC.

One in five viewers aged four to 15 years go to the video sharing platform first when they turn on their smart TVs, it found, while older generations aged over 55 are watching nearly twice as much YouTube as they did two years ago.

TiVo’s Q2 2024 UK Video Trends Report reinforces this shift: social video (YouTube, TikTok etc.) now accounts for nearly one in five minutes of TV viewing, and over a third of UK viewers watch social video on their TVs several times a week - a 9% year-on-year rise. 

The content audiences are watching on YouTube has evolved too. Half of the platform’s top-trending videos now more closely resemble traditional TV, including long-form interviews and game shows. This shift positions YouTube as a direct competitor to ad-supported TV services, while offering broadcasters a way to reach wider and younger audiences.  

According to Chris Kleinschmidt, VP of EMEA Advertising Sales at connected device software developer Xperi, these trends demand a reappraisal of content strategy across platforms.

“It’s not just the idea of shortform versus longform it’s the amount of content that still gives a huge misconception that it is all UGC or cheap, bad content. There is a lot of that on the platform but there’s a lot of professional content too and it’s also very niche. The combination of shortform, longform and user specific niche contentYou makes it difficult for broadcaster content to organically bubble up. Because there’s so much content you almost need have to have niche angle to stand out.”

Kleinschmidt argues that broadcasters need to be more open to putting their content on YouTube. “There are a lot of issues that come with that including licensing and revenue share agreements but if you want to hit key demographics then YouTube is where your audience is spending their time. When broadcaster create high value content they need to have that distributed on as many platforms as possible to recoup investment.”

Most broadcasters are doing this already though not necessarily their primetime first airing on YouTube. They still prioritize their own channels and BVOD apps. That old strategy needs to be challenged, says Kleinschmidt.

“The age-old debate was that putting premium content on YouTube risks cannibalizing your audience but what is the alternative scenario? You’re not going to get that audience any other way so you run the risk of key demographics not seeing your content at all.

“This is the main dilemma. Is YouTube going to be the main source of content distribution in 20 years? Probably not. Something else will have come along but you have to realise that right now YouTube is where the audience is spending their time.”

Some broadcasters are increasingly offering their own programmes on YouTube, for example ITV and Channel 4 make full length programming available on their channels, retaining control over adverts. Ofcom has identified these sorts of partnerships, making public service content available and prominent on online platforms, as critical to sustain the future of public service media in its recent report, Transmission Critical.

In the UK, per Ofcom, the BBC still hold the largest share of total viewing at 19 per cent, with YouTube at 14 per cent, and ITV, Netflix and other broadcasters accounting for 12 per cent, 8 per cent and 7 per cent, respectively. While traditional broadcasters continue to make up the majority of in-home viewing, with 56 per cent of the total share, UK consumers spent 39 minutes on YouTube per day in 2024, with 16 minutes of this via the household’s TV set.

Ofcom's interim group director for strategy and research, Ed Leighton, said scheduled TV is "increasingly alien" to younger viewers, with YouTube now "the first port of call for many" when they pick up the remote.

"But we're also seeing signs that older adults are turning to the platform as part of their daily media diet too," he noted.

TiVo’s report also found social video fuelling in-car habits, with 66% of people watching short videos while charging their EV.

“It’s a growing environment and one of those areas where see positive traction,” says Kleinschmidt. Waiting for 30 minutes to charge your EV is a perfect opportunity to watch snackable content. Two use cases that are worth watching over the next five to ten years are the rise of autonomous vehicles which potentially enable passengers and drivers to stream content on the move; and the increasing number of screens built into new cars.

“Screens are a commodity and relatively inexpensive to add into vehicles. High market value vehicles today have multiple screens onboard. This will filter down the market to the point where it’s conceivable to have personalized video streams for individual screens.”