Outside Broadcasting: summer of sport

Broadcast

The quick succession of Euro 2012 and the Olympics threatens a shortage of skilled crew. Adrian Pennington finds out how the UK’s outside broadcasters will cope.

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/techfacils/production-feature/outside-broadcasting-summer-of-sport/5038394.article

The Olympics dominates the summer’s sporting agenda – and with good reason, as Dave Gordon, head of major events at BBC Sport, explains.

“It is the biggest thing the BBC has ever tackled because of the sheer scale of ambition in what we are doing,” says Gordon, who has been involved in nine previous summer Olympics. He says the amount of media on offer across multiple platforms is unprecedented and probably “more than from any other broadcaster”.

“We will have 2,500 hours of sport on our platforms including day through evening coverage on BBC1 and BBC3. Red button channels, alongside national and local radio coverage and video, will be the core of our web offering,” he says. “There is barely a bit of the BBC that isn’t touched by the Olympics.”

Having offloaded its outside broadcast resources a few years ago, the BBC has contracted SIS Live, the company that bought its OB assets, to supply the bulk of additional cameras, uplink trucks and crew (alongside its own news crews) to supplement the host broadcast provided by the IOC’s production subsidiary, Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS).

“We’re not flooding the venues with extra cameras but selecting sports that will have the most impact for a British audience and augmenting the positions provided by OBS,” Gordon explains.

“As good as the OBS coverage is, it isn’t comprehensive for everything that we might want to feature. There are certain sports where we want isolated feature coverage, for example. For the athletics, we will position a camera high up, covering the stadium in 360 degrees so that it can hone in on the UK team’s lane during a relay race. We will also have some of our own cameras at ground level as an analysis tool for athletes’ movement.”

Manchester link

TV presentation will be produced from the International Broadcast Centre in the Olympic Park, where two presentation areas, for BBC1 and BBC3, are being built.

Pictures and sound will be fed by fibre up to Salford, where the web operation is based. BBC sports news output will also originate from there.

Arena Television is one of three UK OB contractors working for OBS (alongside French group Euromedia and Belgium’s Alfacam). It also has a couple of smaller presentation contracts with international broadcasters including NBC.

“Planning has been ongoing for about a year now and is very complex,” says Arena MD Richard Yeowart. “Luckily for us, there is no Glastonbury this year, allowing us to accommodate more summer work than normal.”

In addition to this and its ‘bread and butter’ contracts, Arena is one of two UK companies working for Uefa to provide host coverage of Euro 2012. The second, Telegenic, will drive two HD vans to the Ukraine, after performing a successful job for Uefa at Switzerland 2008. Its trucks will be parked at venues in Donetsk and Kharkiv “mainly because they don’t want to move trucks around Ukraine because of the quality of the roads”, says unit manager Eamonn Curtin.

Playing ball

Telegenic’s Olympics commitment involves host broadcast responsibility for volleyball and some of the football, both of which will be in 2D.

The firm has now added Speedway to its existing roster of events for Sky Sports – which include Heineken Cup Rugby, Aviva Premiership Rugby, Super League and regular Premier League 3D match coverage – as well as a trio of equestrian events: Hickstead Derby, the Royal International Horse Show and the Horse of the Year Show, which are all planned to be shot in 3D.

“We did the Horse of the Year Show successfully in 3D in 2011, which looked great because we can get the cameras so close to the action,” says Curtin, who admits that covering the larger-scale Derby racetrack will be more challenging.

The future of the International Broadcast Centre is of particular interest to The Crewing Company, which, with its partners Alias Hire and The Bridge, is part of the iCity consortium bidding to take over the site. The firm’s HQ is adjacent to the Olympic Park media gate.

“The fibre-optic links laid around the park to support the games will benefit media businesses, but also the cost of rent in Soho is fuelling a gradual move out east,” says joint MD Stuart Hatton. “We feel that Hackney Wick is going to be key to the development of the digital media industry in this country.”

The Crewing Company is supplying technical personnel such as transmissions and commentary control operators to OBS as well as Caribbean broadcaster SportsMax. “There is not enough talent in the UK to fulfil demand so we’re recruiting from all over Europe, South Africa and Australia,” says Hatton, who is looking to add another 200 to his pool of 650 domestic freelancers by the summer. Particularly sought-after are broadcast engineers with experience of high-profile live sports events, and camera crew. International broadcasters tend to bring key crew members over but will look to build up their teams locally.

“Many broadcasters have yet to make a final decision and some very good UK crews have not yet been snapped up, but I fully expect they will be and there will be a huge shortage of London-based camera crew to pick up non-Olympic stuff in that-six week period,” says Hatton.

Presteigne Charter chief executive Mike Ransome agrees that resources will be stretched, but says its engineers were contracted to Olympic duty six months ago.

It is preparing to build MCRs including signals processing and EVS/Avid-based tapeless server and edit systems for The Olympic Unit, a collaboration between Australian broadcasters Channel Nine and Foxtel, and for Canada’s CTV.

The company is also serving broadcasters covering French Open tennis, Wimbledon and Euro 2012.

With little understatement, Ransome concludes: “The logistics of getting crew and kit to places to set up in time during this period will be extremely important.”

OLYMPIC BROADCASTING SERVICES
TECHNICAL CHALLENGE

As the host broadcaster, Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) is responsible for providing pictures from London 2012 to 147 rights-holding broadcasters.

Planning for the Games started soon after London was chosen as host city in 2005. OBS liaised with the London organising Committee of the Olympic Games (Locog) in all areas affecting broadcasting, including the competition schedule, location and build of the 42,000 sq m International Broadcast Centre (IBC), plus logistics and technology.

It also worked with rights holders to confirm their specific requirements. For example, it was not until broadcasters such as NBC and the BBC requested 3D coverage that OBS decided to produce 230-plus hours in the format.

Production resources, excluding those for 3D, include 50 mobile units, 14 of them from UK suppliers, and more than 1,000 cameras (up from 900 in Beijing) including 40 super-slow-motion cameras.

This will produce more than 5,600 hours of footage, in HD and stored on EVS XStore-SAn technology. All material will be available throughout the Games – in Beijing, material had to be deleted every three days. Audio will be produced in 5.1 Surround Sound with all channels embedded in the HD stream.

The number of hours is disputed; one rights-holding broadcaster said that when less necessary feeds such as beauty shots are taken out of the equation, the broadcastable volume is nearer 2,500 hours.

Whatever the case, the Games is the world’s largest broadcast operation and will be transmitted to a 204 territories and an estimated global audience of 4.8 billion.

The OBS team will increase from 150 full-time staff to a workforce of around 5,600 by the time the Games starts. This includes 1,200 students trained and paid to work as audio and camera assistants, commentary system operators or liaison officers.

Production enhancements include the use of virtual graphics in sports including athletics, swimming and rowing. OBS will also provide detailed course animations for select sports, making use of GPS tracking to show precise routes, significant course aspects and passing places of interest.

In partnership with NHK and the BBC, OBS will also film part of the Games in the Super Hi-Vision format, which offers 16 times the quality of HD TV.

CASE STUDY

On the road with Sky’s F1

“We have a high bar to reach,” acknowledges Sky director of operations Darren Long. But he is up for the challenge of bettering the BBC’s presentation of Formula 1 races when Sky begins its first full season of live coverage from Melbourne on 18 March.

A dedicated channel, Sky Sports F1 HD, will be filled with everything fans of the sport want, says Long. “It’s not just about what the drivers do on the track but everything behind the scenes.”

Core to raceday production is a series of flypacks built by Gearhouse Broadcast. “Everything from Sky Sports F1 news to promos will be produced in HD and with 5.1 audio from the pods,” explains Long. “F1 is not just about the pictures but the equally amazing sound, such as the individual sounds of each car.”

P2 cameras will be deployed with comms links by Wisycom. Omneon MediaGrid shared-storage systems, housed at Sky Studios and in the pods, will be linked into Avid Isis for media management.

All seven feeds, which let viewers choose between, for example, the main race, onboard cameras or stats, will be sent back to Sky on a fibre-optic network jointly delivered by the EBU and AT&T.

“We don’t want to rely on satellite so we are sending and receiving feeds via fibre,” says Long. “AT&T is already on site delivering data for teams and it has an extensive worldwide network.”

Finding an alternative to tape

Broadcast

Adrian Pennington weighs up the options, from high-end media like SR and Redmag, to robust memory cards such as SxS and P2, and the latest prosumer options including XQD.

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/techfacils/production-feature/finding-an-alternative-to-tape/5038136.article

As tapeless production becomes the norm, costly errors in hand ling the media are a concern. While security measures like backing up the day’s files are widely acknowledged, the introduction of new recording media into the market can confuse matters.

There is high-end media like Sony’s SR Memory Card and Red’s Redmag, both solid-state drives built into a cartridge form and capable of recording hi-res uncompressed footage at high frame rates.

Next come robust memory cards like SxS (Sony and SanDisk) and P2 (Panasonic), and then prosumer media like CF (Compact Flash), SD (Secure Digital), SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity) or the new XQD cards, seen as a successor to CF.

“Despite being cheaper, XQD cards are still capable of capturing low-compression HD footage from a wide variety of recording devices,” says Simon Gannon, head of marketing at cloud video production platform Aframe.

As most solid-state media is fairly similar in terms of physical robustness, the main difference is in the read/write speeds. Because the speed at which a card can read or write determines the quality of the recording format that can be captured to it, producers are left with the standard production equation of quality versus cost.

“Cheaper cards bring higher risk of lost footage,” warns Don Grant, systems manager at broadcast hire firm Procam Tele vision. “Compact Flash, for example, is nowhere near as reliable as, say, SxS or P2. The latter is made by the same manufacturer as the camera it will be used in, so if you do have an issue, you can pretty much guarantee their support.”

Then there are portable file-based recorders that take the HD-SDI output of a camera to obtain a higher-quality signal. These are made by the likes of AJA, Atomos, Blackmagic, Codex, Cinedec and Convergent Design.

“By some distance, the most important step in deciding which recording device to use is to ask your post house,” says HotCam technical supervisor Daniel Farmer. “They will tell you whether the recording format and signal input is compatible and of high enough quality to make it smoothly through post without inadvertently costing you more time and money. It’s all well and good being able to take an HDMI signal and record it to a low-cost SD card, but there’s always a compromise when using consumer products.”

Perhaps the main advantage of using a recorder is to gain access to a higher-data-rate codec that enables the material to satisfy the broadcaster’s requirements, such as the 50Mbps rule that most UK broadcasters, including Sky and the BBC, use for HD acquisition.

Another advantage is the ability to gather the material in a codec that is directly usable in the edit system. “An Avid system would prefer a DNxHD codec, while an Apple FCP system would prefer the Pro Res HD codec,” says Procam head engineer Perry Mitchell. “Even then, there are often several versions of these, so it’s important to check that the version required, perhaps due to data size restraints, is available on a particular recorder model.”

The latest memory recorders are designed to create native Apple Pro Res, Avid DNxHD, RAW and HDCam SR files, which are much greater in size than the files many in the industry have been used to.

“It is a very competitive area and none of them tick all the boxes,” says Alain Lolliot, technical operations manager at Pro Motion Hire. “Some recorders offer very low compression, around 145Mbps, but do not offer 50Mbps, which is all producers need for HD broadcast [Convergent Design’s nanoFlash does offer 50Mbps but has no in-built confidence monitoring]. The knock-on cost in having to manage larger file sizes needs weighing up.”

Fortunately, facilities and hire houses can play a guiding role for the production manager, who usually takes ultimate responsibility for workflow and the assets produced.

“They need an understanding of the processes involved – what can go wrong and what to do if something does,” says Lolliot.

High on the PM’s list should be assigning the vital role of safeguarding the show’s rushes. Drama productions would probably use a higher-spec camera and have a staffed camera crew including a digital imaging technician (DIT) on set to deal with look management and data.

Ob docs with higher shooting ratios, smaller cameras, smaller crews and smaller budgets might only back up material to a cheap RAID array at the end of the day’s shoot, and the team typically view material on a laptop or portable device.

There may be enough in the budget to assign a data wrangler to supervise the data but, as Lolliot observes, “often the task of back-up and transfer falls to junior producers, runners or camera assistants”.

Problems are exacerbated as these tasks often need to be done at the end of a long day, so time in the schedule is as much of a prerequisite as training.

“I’ve seen people scrabbling around looking for footage due to a misplaced file or broken folder structure on too many occasions,” observes Farmer. “It can seem quite easy just to sit and transfer files, and the cost of a dedicated media manager is something a lot of producers want to avoid. That is a mistake. Without footage, the entire shoot is a write-off.”

While there are some real cost savings to be had in shooting on card instead of tape, production companies have had to come up with their own solutions to clear the cards so they can be reused. This means somebody copying the data onto hard drives, via a laptop.

“This is not always practical in the field, and hard drives are much more susceptible to failure or damage,” says Grant. “There has been little choice, other than to adapt. No new tape-based HD cameras are coming onto the market, and already technology is developing further still.”

With the recent arrival of the QXD format, a new wave of cameras and recording units can’t be far behind.

Ironically, it is tape system LTO that is considered a more attractive option for archive than alternatives such as optical disc.

“Each £50 optical disc holds 50Gb of data and takes up to an hour to write 90 minutes of rushes,” explains Lolliot. “So if you have 1.5Tb of data to back up, that would require 30 50Gb discs, and take 30 hours to write, at a cost of £1,500 for the media alone. A 1.5Tb LTO-5 tape would take about three hours to copy, at a cost of around £45 in total for the media, saving you 27 hours and £1,455 in media, let alone man hours and sanity.”

Preserving these much-cherished luxuries out in the field could be where tapeless truly comes into its own.

GOING TAPELESS
24 HOURS IN A&E

The second series of Channel 4 ob doc 24 Hours in A&E is being filmed in HD using more than 90 cameras and with an innovative workflow.

The Garden Productions will produce 14 hour-long episodes from its six-week round-the-clock shoot on location at London’s King’s College Hospital. “The first series was shot SD to SX tape, so going HD and tapeless for this series made a massive difference to our approach,” explains Garden managing director Scarlett Ewens, who devised the workflow with The Farm.

“The sheer volume of data – 160Tb – and the way the media is being put together is different to a conventional ob doc so it made more sense to manage the media at the front end of production. The Farm is responsible for storing and QCing media on location and transferring all the data to the edit so that the grey area between location and facility house, which can lead to problems, is bridged.”

The 91 fixed-camera feeds are cut by directors in two custom-built galleries, with the feeds recorded to Avid Airspeed. Media is immediately captured to Isis via Interplay’s transfer management at 50Mbps 4:2:2 and copied to LTO-5 tape with associated metadata written in Linear Tape File System (LTFS), and is then couriered to The Farm’s central London data-handling facility.

Once there, the tapes are ingested into Unity for editing on Avid. “The adoption of this procedure means we don’t have to archive once on site and again at the end of production,” says Ewens.

One alternative would be to record directly to XDCam HD disc and keep the discs as a more traditional archive, but this would have meant buying approximately 8,000 discs.

David Klafkowski, technical director at The Farm Group, concludes: “This represents a sea change in the way in which we can run a post operation on location.”

3D's slow but sure coming of age

Broadcast 

A lack of original content and funding issues have slowed growth, but progress is still being made. http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/techfacils/3ds-slow-but-sure-coming-of-age/5035548.article

With the number of 3D-ready displays sold in the UK predicted to triple by the end of 2012 to 2.3 million, and with acquisition of 3D content opening up internationally, the market for 3D TV continues to grow, albeit slowly.

The economic climate is playing its part in dampening down display sales, the consumer is being exposed to too much ‘filler’ material on channels because of a dearth of original content, while poorly converted or produced stereo films are damaging the perception of 3D’s value at the box office.

For many, the trajectory charted by HD remains the most pertinent guide.

It took more than a decade from HD’s introduction for it to become a mature product, so we should not be impatient for 3D TV to reach those heights in only its second year.

“We are in a period where everyone doubts its viability, but we have moved on from experimentation to talking about programming content,” says Duncan Humphreys, creative director at CAN Communicate.

“We are talking less about the technology, more about ideas, production values and storylines that work in 3D.”

CAN’s co-pro with Renegade Pictures of 10 x 60-minute Safari 3D for Discovery’s 3net is an example of the move towards mainstream formats.

Gameshows and drama series are also being touted.

“The challenge is for innovative producers to take on the mantle and make unique programming that is enhanced by 3D, rather than filling airtime with 3D as a badge,” says Nineteen Fifteen founder Vicki Betihavas.

The spectacle of the Olympics in 3D could galvanise consumers into buying 3D-ready displays, but the wider issue in sport is funding.

“Manufacturers will only underwrite productions for so long. It’s about finding a route to market that can fund itself,” says Humphreys.

“Part of the answer lies in selling the 3D broadcast rights separately from the 2D ones so that 3D finds its own value in the market.”

Across genre, costs can be double those of a 2D HD show, particularly if high volumes of CGI are involved, but the perception that 3D is high risk and high cost needs to be tackled, says Andrew Shelley, operations manager at On Sight.

“Producers are able to strip back the component parts of a 3D production in terms of processes, equipment and people to make an efficient and quality production,” he adds.

Those that have produced 3D content for television, such as OSF, Leopard Films, Renegade, Colonial Pictures and Atlantic Productions, are small- or medium-sized indies.

Yet larger producers with repeat or volume commissions have yet to find a route, although it could be argued that Tigress Productions’ (part of Endemol) 60-minute natural history show Beautiful Freaks breaks that mould.

For David Pounds, managing director of Electric Sky, producer of 3D extreme sports series High Octane, production is becoming more affordable thanks to innovations in technology.

“New Sony and Panasonic 3D camcorders are much more manageable than rigs - although rigs are still necessary for certain projects,” he says.

“Media Composer 6 contains stereo tools, which makes 3D more readily available in edit suites. Overall, 3D tools are much more accessible.

“Having said that, producers need to seriously consider whether their company has the right sensibility and right people on board to grasp 3D. Don’t treat it as a novelty or after-thought.”

He predicts the 3D TV market will remain largely static over the next year: “It is almost impossible to fund 3D TV without a 2D channel partner backing you in some shape or form.”

Betihavas agrees: “If your programme can stack up internationally in 2D, then you have a good chance of getting it funded.”

The buzz from Mipcom was that several broadcasters in Europe and Asia have 3D in their plans, but funding sources are limited at the moment.

Discovery Europe commissioned its first tranche of 3D to play on Sky 3D and 3net in the US, and in preparation for a mooted full channel launch on the Sky platform.

The BBC also continues to experiment with various genres. Next up is the live 3D TX of the Strictly Come Dancing final. It is occasional events such as this and BBC Earth featurescale productions Walking With Dinosaurs 3D and The Enchanted Kingdom, as well as sport (expanded 3D coverage at Wimbledon 2012 is planned), that dominate the broadcaster’s strategy.

“Internationally branded, event-led 3D projects are most likely to sell, although the global 3D TV market is very fickle,” confirms Paul Berrow, chief executive of distributor Log Media.

Most stakeholders, Sky included, maintain that 3D content will only fly with user-friendly displays that don’t require glasses.

The introduction of tablets, smartphones and games consoles with 3D screens could be a “game-changer”, suggests Anthony Geffen, creative director of Atlantic Productions and Sky joint-venture Colossus Productions, which is readying the 3 x 60-minute Kew 3D for Sky.

Betihavas adds: “We need displays to get to a point where they don’t need cumbersome glasses, and where content truly is a better experience in 3D over 2D.

“There are a number of funding and distribution options; you just need to look a little harder for them, and definitely think outside the box.”

CASE STUDY: LONDON 2012 OLYMPICS

After much speculation, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) finally announced that up to 300 hours of the London 2012 Games will be captured in 3D.

Even if that is a fraction of the total 5,000 hours of coverage, it can no longer be considered an experiment or just for archive, as seemed the most likely scenario six months ago.

The IOC has received feedback from major rights holders including the BBC, NBC and ESPN in support of a sizeable commitment to 3D production.

Events at 14 venues will be covered, enough for Olympic Broadcast Services (OBS) to create a 10-hour daily mix of live footage and highlights.

Three outside broadcast firms will produce this separately from the 2D broadcast.

Each mobile unit will carry 12-14 rigs for around 40 camera positions.

About 20 newsgathering crews sporting Panasonic dual-lens camcorders will also contribute. These cameras will also be used track- or pool-side to get nearer to the athletes.

The opening and closing ceremonies will be covered, as will popular events such as gymnastics and track and field, in addition to sports such as swimming and canoeing, which have not previously been captured in 3D.

OBS will be contracting a 3D production specialist and will work with official sponsor Panasonic to select the right candidate.

Hopefuls include US rig developers Element Technica; Belgium OB giant Alfacam, which is already supplying the bulk of facilities to OBS; and Cameron Pace Group, which produced the X Games in 3D for ESPN earlier this year. CAN Communicate is likely to be involved in recorded 3D Olympics programming.

TIMELINE: A YEAR IN 3D

April
Formation of technology specialist Cameron Pace Group (CPG) by James Cameron and Vince Pace, targeting broadcast production companies

Sky appoints John Cassy as director of 3D

Sky produces 10-minute 3D short of the royal wedding

May
Atlantic Productions’ Flying Monsters 3D for Sky wins Bafta for Specialist Factual

Launch of Telegenic’s third 3D OB truck in time for Sky Sports 3D production of the UEFA Champions League final

June
Sky Arts airs two hours of live music in 3D for three nights from the Isle of Wight festival

July
Discovery Europe orders first 3D shows in the UK. Signs distribution deals with Sky and Virgin Media

BBC broadcasts three matches from Wimbledon’s centre Court in 3D, its first live 3D broadcast

Sky teams up with Atlantic to create Colossus Productions, a joint venture specialising in 3D

September
Merger of rig developers 3Ality Digital and Element Technica into 3Ality Technica

October
First UK horseracing event fi lmed in 3D, by CAN Communicate at Ascot for At The Races

December

BBC films the final of Strictly in 3D

Uneven year for OB sector

Broadcast

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/techfacils/uneven-year-for-ob-sector/5035543.article

The royal wedding and Rugby World Cup kept outside broadcast firms busy in a quiet year, but 2012 promises to be a whole lot better. 

International sporting events tend to fall in even years but thanks to the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand and the decade’s biggest ad hoc event to date - the royal wedding - suppliers to the live broadcast market were kept busy.

Nonetheless, even active OB suppliers are looking to diversify to keep their expertise and facilities ticking over during the odd years and an ever-threatening recession.

SIS LIVE commercial director Phil Aspden says 2011 was: “A tough year, compounded by constant pressure on programme budgets as a consequence of the poor economic climate.”

Aspden is looking to diversify from SIS’s core OB business by building on relationships such as its joint venture with Peel Media to operate multi-client broadcast facilities at MediaCityUK.

“We intend to build the largest teleport in the north-west in support of our activities and will be looking at ways to develop our growing national fibre capability,” he explains.

The one big sporting fixture SIS was able to get its teeth into this year was Wimbledon, providing HD facilities for BBC Sport’s host coverage.

The hallowed green of Centre Court also marked NEP Visions’ first foray into live 3D broadcasting in conjunction with 3D specialists CAN Communicate and Sony.

Aired live in 3D on the BBC’s HD channel, the trio of matches culminating in the men’s singles final were produced from a pair of Visions’ Gemini trucks, which split 3D convergence and EVS operation from production.

Planning is already at an advanced stage for expanded 3D coverage of the tournament next June. On the whole, however, 3D broadcasting has got off to a slow start.

Demand remains low, with audience take-up reportedly already in decline within cinemas, and the sale of 3D-capable TVs still slow compared with the speed of HD uptake.

“From a facility provider’s point of view, the investment required to undertake 3D is difficult to justify without a broadcaster agreeing to underwrite the capital cost,” says Aspden.

CTV managing director Barry Johnstone agrees: “Outside of Sky, the demand for 3D is low and can’t justify the amount of investment needed. 3D is a risky peripheral business.”

Arena Television managing director Richard Yeowart has seen a decline in interest in 3D coverage and reports.

“We were getting weekly enquiries for OBs and aerial filming, but this has dropped back to just one a month,” he says.

Arena is waiting for 3D cameramount technology to settle, and for demand to become more stable, before making any signifi cant move into the market.

“Any major investment made now would have to be written off over two years, which isn’t where we see ourselves,” says Yeowart.

“I think uptake will depend on the right technology being introduced.” The only OB fi rm with a strong 3D business is Telegenic, because of its ties with Sky. It felt confident enough to launch a third dedicated 3D vehicle in time for Sky Sports to host 3D production of the UEFA Champions League final from Wembley, and has announced plans for a fourth, this time for nonsports entertainment work.

Branching out into ad hoc and nonsports events seems to be key to making these uneven years pay. Johnstone, who is also chief operating officer of CTV’s parent company Euro Media Group (EMG), observes that walk in business across the group has increased.

He says the noncontractual business, including the Asian Winter Games in Kazakhstan, concerts and nonsports series like One Born Every Minute and The Hotel, seems buoyant.

Arena TV will close the year 7% up on 2010 after completing its OB14 truck, which is aimed at the ad hoc market of music and events coverage.

Yeowart, meanwhile, notes a “very stable 2011” when few mainstream contracts changed hands.

“Apart from couple that are currently doing the rounds, most contracts were ongoing across the sector so there was little churn in 2011.”

NEP Visions managing director Steve Jenkins oversaw 20% growth in turnover this year, which he attributes to “organic growth in the UK market and broadening our client base”.

Yet the challenge of tight budgets and minimal margins hasn’t gone away.

“Increasing fuel costs are outside our control and the investment in technology has not got any cheaper,” he says. Visions’ robotic camera subsidiary Roll to Record retained the Big Brother contract for Channel 5, upgrading the kit to HD.

“In terms of hours, it’s a massive departure for C5,” says Mike Bass, the company’s commercial director.

“We’ve set it up as a massive flyaway kit, with all three shows running concurrently off a huge router. It’s a significant step forward in terms of technology, and I think it really does show in the resulting picture quality.”

The biggest piece of ad hoc work was without question April’s royal wedding, when large swathes of the UK’s OB armoury were corralled in Green Park supplying the host ITN, Sky and BBC HD broadcast, as well as numerous international broadcasters.

NEP Visions and Aerial Camera Systems covered the inside of Westminster Abbey, with cameras for the host broadcast of the ceremony itself.

SIS supplied eight OB units, a specialist sound truck, 13 uplink units and an array of RF communications, including 13 radio cameras for the host and another 40 satellite uplink trucks for clients including NBC News and France Télévisions.
But this event will be dwarfed by the celebrations for the Diamond Jubilee next June. The total OB requirement (led by the BBC) is expected to be up to four times bigger than for the royal wedding.

Live music

Music concerts have also become good regular and ad hoc staples for broadcasters, particularly as the popularity (and ticket cost) of live music rises.

The BBC has been the leader in this field with its coverage of multiday events like Glastonbury (OB supported by SIS). One notable first this year was broadcasting Coldplay’s headline set live around the world.

The BBC also had extensive live broadcasts from the Reading (SIS) and T in the Park (six OB trucks from NEP Visions) festivals, but Sky 3D and Telegenic also made an impact in this area with live 3D coverage of the Isle of Wight festival in June, part of Sky’s experiment in 3D festivals across the summer.

All eyes are now turning towards London 2012. Indeed, preparation has been going on all year. SIS has almost all of its SNG vehicles and OB fleet committed over the Olympic period, for broadcasters including the BBC as well as OBS, the Olympic host broadcaster.

SIS continues to pursue business from nonrights holders and is planning a bespoke playout and editing facility at its Corsham St office, which has the advantage of close proximity to the Olympic Park.

The UEFA European Football Championship in Ukraine and Poland (from June 2012) will absorb further capacity from at least two UK OB companies (Arena and Telegenic).

Yeowart says he believes the high demand during this crunch period means that “some competitors are charging rate card plus a premium for these events, [rather than rate card less a discount]”.

Visions will be taking care of NBC’s needs at London 2012 but Jenkins is mindful that when an event the size of the Olympics is on home turf, “you don’t overstretch yourself against your regular year round customers”.

He adds: “A number of events have reshuffl ed their schedule either side of the Games and we have to take thatn into account to ensure there is capacity in terms of human resource and kit.

TIMELINE: A YEAR IN OUTSIDE BROADCAST

January
NEP Visions secures multimillion-dollar deal to supply equipment and technical crew for the seventh Asian Winter Games

2011 World Indoor Bowls Championships live on BBC (Arqiva, Input Media)

S4C’s live coverage channel S4C2 is axed February Six Nations Rugby Final gives BBC1 more than 9.5 million viewers

April
Royal wedding goes live to 2 billion viewers worldwide with OB services provided by NEP Visions, SIS LIVE, Arqiva, Arena, Bow Tie and others

YouTube rolls out a dedicated live-TV section with plans to enable thousands of channel partners to also stream content live

London Marathon is broadcast live worldwide to 159 countries (SIS, NEP Visions, Aerial Camera)

May UEFA Champions League Final 2011 (NEP Visions), FA Cup Final and Europa Cup (both SIS), Chelsea Flower Show (SIS)

June
BBC Wimbledon live in 3D (NEP Visions, CAN and Sony), as well as full HD coverage of every match at Wimbledon on seven courts (SIS)

Glastonbury live across the BBC (SIS and others)

SIS enters into formal arbitration after a failed attempt earlier this year by British diplomats to recover its £15m fee for providing OB facilities at last year’s Commonwealth Games in India August

SIS warns staff to be on their guard for further attacks after the company’s outside broadcast trucks are attacked by rioters in London and Manchester

September
Channel 5’s Big Brother live in HD (Roll to Record)

October
Endemol’s Deal Or No Deal goes out live for a two-week daily run (BBC S&PP)

OB firm NEP Cymru trials a new camera set-up that aims to deliver live pictures from the barrel of a wave for the Quiksilver Pro France surfing contest

November
Children In Need night - seven hours of live HD broadcast (BBC S&PP)

Sky Sports announces it is to launch a dedicated Formula One channel when it starts broadcasting the series in March 2012

CASE STUDY: HORSE SHOW OF THE YEAR

In October, Sky 3D covered its first live equestrian event, the Horse Of The Year Show from Birmingham NEC.

The six day event was produced as a joint 2D and 3D operation out of two Telegenic trucks.

“The challenge with anything new is to get the camera angles right without the benefi t of being able to test them beforehand,” says Robin Broomfield, operations development manager at Sky 3D.

His solution was to work with the experience that the directors and production team gained on other sports, and transfer that into the equestrian field.

“It’s known, for example, that lower angles look much better for what we’re after,” says Broomfield.

“In equestrian we were lucky because the camera angles are generally low anyway. What I also found, when comparing 2D and 3D, was not only does 3D give you the depth, the distance between the fences and so on, but it also gives you a sense of the size of the fences and the size of the horses. It felt like a more real experience than watching it in 2D.”

He adds: “There were a couple of angles we couldn’t get into - the handheld RFs being one of them - so one of the Steadicams had to be 2D. But we had six of our standard 3D rigs working in the ring [3ality rigs with Sony 1500s] and a couple of minicams on the fences. We also had a special Sky 3D fence.”

More than 60 people worked on the event with 16 cameras as well as the two OB trucks.

“One covered the event and 3D operation, and the other was for studio and replay operation,” Broomfield explains.

BBC trial puts Daleks in the living room

Broadcast

Toy Daleks that move in time with their on-screen counterparts in an episode of Doctor Who have been demonstrated by researchers at BBC R&D North.

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/bbc-trial-puts-daleks-in-the-living-room/5034990.article

The prototype is part of a wider project called Universal Control, which is investigating how video played on a connected-TV or internet-enabled set-top box can be used to control other devices in the living room.

“It’s a playful illustration that shows the possibilities that exist to producers when we start to think about future connectivity in a home environment in which all devices will be IP connected,” explained R&D North project director Adrian Woolard.

“Effectively this puts another actor in the living room, enabling a production team to write a script and include it as part of the viewer’s experience.”

In the experiment, devised by trainee technologist Andrew Bonney, a 2 ft-high remote-controlled toy mirrored the movements of a Dalek from a sequence in Doctor Who.

Bonney had programmed the model, which was triggered automatically by timecode in the video sent over wi-fi from a MythTV open-source DVR.

In future, such metadata could be embedded into the video at the point of acquisition and applied to any commercial set-top box or connected TV.

Universal Control is primarily aimed at transferring the functions of a platform like YouView to devices and user interfaces that are more user-friendly to people with physical disabilities.

BBC R&D is also exploring the impact of dual-screen usage on content production at the points of acquisition and pre-production.

It has developed an iPad app for production teams to input data while video is captured, so that it is instantly available to all members of the production team and kept along with the video in perpetuity.