Graphics & Editing roundup

InBroadcast

Avid moves to the cloud, Adobe offers collaborative editing and Blackmagic’s focus is on realtime composites.

http://europe.nxtbook.com/nxteu/lesommet/inbroadcast_201710/index.php#/44

The product strategy of most production and post production vendors continues to be one which shifts functionality and services into the Cloud. Perhaps the biggest thing in Avid’s favour is that its brand offers a familiar and trusted on-ramp for content creators, facilities and broadcasters moving to the cloud.

At IBC, the company debuted MediaCentral, a suite of tools accessed by browser which promises to help create, distribute, and manage content using one common platform.

According to Chairman & CEO Louis Hernandez, Jr., Avid has spent half a billion dollars on re-engineering its product for the cloud.  

He said, “We’ve not just completed a full transformation we have created a platform that is flexible and open and agile enough to allow us to move forward.”

The MediaCentral production suite is the firm’s centrepiece. It costs from $20,000, includes Media Composer and Nexis storage, and has modules and apps for editorial, news, graphics, and asset management as well as an array of media services and partner connectors.

Nor is it exclusively an Avid domain. One of those ‘partner connectors’ could be Grass Valley or Adobe, should Premiere be your craft tools of choice.

“MediaCentral delivers a unified view to all media – whether stored on Avid or another platform,” said Hernandez. “The user experience is common for everyone.” Avid is now rolling out web-based applications like search, edit, logging and publishing.

Media Composer VM is debuted for a user to access a cloud-based version of Media Composer from a tablet or computer. Media Composer Cloud Remote is an application run from the computer but it accesses content located in the cloud.

Microsoft is Avid’s preferred cloud provider. Dana Ruzicka, VP and chief product officer, said “The move to cloud is imminent for almost all of our customers – but it’s not a lift and shift. It’s an evolution based on their business needs. This really is the beginning of the cloud era for our industry.”

ProTools, news workflows and archiving are already available via Azure. Avid is also allowing users to tap into Microsoft’s machine learning tools, for example, facial recognition and social media analytics.

Avid also unveiled Maestro Sports described as an all-in-one broadcast graphics and video control system targeting live sports production. Its selling points include operation by a single person so broadcasters can save on costs. An operator can integrate tracked-to-field graphics and augmented reality to highlight and analyze plays, as well as visually tie sponsors into the game. All from the same UI you can create virtual formations and starting lineups, 9-metre circles, distance to goal indicators, and even virtual elements such as team logos, 3D objects, and advertising.

The system includes a video server, for graphics and video rendering, and playout as well as connection to external storage such as Avid NEXIS in the studio.  

Blackmagic Design’s main focus at IBC was on the Ultimatte 12, the latest version of the keyer which Blackmagic acquired this time last year.

Preferring to describe it as an advanced real time compositing processor, Ultimatte 12, is for creating composites with both fixed cameras and static backgrounds, or automated virtual set systems. It can also be used for on set pre visualization by allowing actors and directors see the virtual sets they’re interacting with while shooting against green screen.

Ultimatte 12 also features one touch keying technology that analyzes a scene and automatically sets over a hundred parameters to make live compositing easier.  Based on a new hardware processor the machine costs under $10,000 and is available now. Ultimatte 12 is controlled via Smart Remote 4, which is a touch screen remote that connects via Ethernet. Up to eight Ultimatte 12 units can be daisy chained together and connected to the same Remote. This costs an additional $3,855.

Announced at NAB and now released are DaVinci Resolve 14 and DaVinci Resolve Studio 14. Enhanced editing capabilities, multi-user abilities, increased native OFX plug-ins and, certainly not to be glossed over, the inclusion of Fairlight all combine to make Resolve and Resolve Studio 14 a major post production tool.  The price of Resolve Studio has been lowered from $995 to $299, making the jump from the still-free Resolve to the more feature-laden Studio easier.

New features coming to Adobe Premiere Pro via Creative Cloud include shared projects, which are like bins in Avid. These allow for different subprojects to all be stored inside of a master project. This means editors can work on different scenes at the same time while all having access to each other’s subprojects with different permissions set for who can read/write vs. who can just read and refresh changes. Other useful new features include more marker colours, close gaps and font previews. This could be a ‘game changer’ for Adobe’s place in the multi-editor workflow of large feature films and TV shows, which Avid has dominated.

VR integration between Premiere Pro and After Effects is made possible by Immersive, a toolset which includes Adobe’s new VR Comp Editor in AE with the ability to transform 360 degree footage into flat rectilinear shots. In other words, it allows the editor to review their timeline and use keyboard driven editing for trimming and markers while wearing the same VR head-mounts as their audience. It will work either on screen or more appropriately with an Oculus Rift or HTC Vive headset. Immersive effects are designed to apply Blur, Glow, Sharpen, Denoise and Chormatic Aberration filters in a VR version allowing for proper results that a flat image filter could not produce.

In addition, audio will be determined by orientation or position and exported as ambisonics audio for VR-enabled platforms such as YouTube and Facebook. VR effects and transitions are now native and accelerated via the Mercury playback engine.

“Video is the fastest growing medium in communications and entertainment,” said Bryan Lamkin, svp of Digital Media at Adobe. “Adobe is breaking new ground in collaboration, social sharing and analytics to accelerate workflows for all video creators.”

Brainstorm’s InfinitySet 3 virtual set tools now includes the graphics editing and creation features of Aston so it can edit, manage and create 2D/3D motion graphics when required.

The incorporation of Aston graphics allows for direct editing of not only Aston projects but the individual elements, animations, StormLogic, data feeds and so on as if they were in Aston. This means that in broadcast operation, or while on-air, InfinitySet 3 operators will be able to adjust any object in the scene, even those with added properties such as animations or external data feeds, without having to do so in a separate Aston application.

The package supports third-party render engines such as the Unreal Engine. As it is integrated with the Brainstorm eStudio render engine, this allows InfinitySet 3 to control in real-time the Unreal Engine’s parameters such as 3D motion graphics, lower-thirds, tickers, and CG.

The product also comes with technologies such as 3D Presenter, TeleTransporter, HandsTracking, and FreeWalking, all of them using Brainstorm’s unique TrackFree technology. Especially interesting is a VirtualGate feature, which allows for the integration of the presenter not only in the virtual set but also inside additional content within it, so the talent in the virtual world can be ‘teletransported’ to any video with full broadcast continuity.

Sixty has a slick Interactive TV graphics system that layers on top of existing high-end graphics displays (from companies such as ChyronHego, Vizrt, or Ross). This creates a simplified workflow for producers while offering a highly-interactive graphical display for users on a touch-screen tablet or phone.

Users can access loads of advanced analytics and Sixty fully integrates with data services from Opta, STATS, and more. The software also places monetisation at the forefront, allowing for producers to automate ads tied to events such as goals and even prompt sales of products such as jerseys or other items that are tied to real-time moments in the stream.

ChyronHego has a freshly minted integration of its Silver robotic camera head with the RoboRail straight camera rail system from Mo-Sys for a camera tracking and augmented reality graphics solution. Silver is part of ChyronHego's range of virtual studio/AR trackers that provide real-time, precise camera motion within 2D or 3D computer-generated backgrounds.

Installed on the RoboRail, mounted vertically or horizontally on a wall, ceiling, floor, or even the anchor's desk, the system makes it easy for news productions to enliven their newscasts with visually compelling AR graphics. MOS interfaces with newsroom computer systems enable ChyronHego's CAMIO graphic asset management server to deliver the AR and virtual set graphics to air, together with the right assets and camera motions.

Google has spent $30 billion on building out its cloud services and is now pitching it to media. “For us, cloud is about scale and there is no limit to what media can do,” explained Jeff Kember, Technical Director Media, Google Cloud, at IBC. “We have an end to end production workflow from camera raw and debayering through image recognition, editing and on to archive and disaster recovery.”

The editing he mentioned refers to Google’s ability to apply machine learning to data in the cloud. For example, it has a research application allowing production teams to automatically generate highlights reels from uploaded rushes – potentially shortcutting the bespoke systems of Avid or EVS.

“Our goal is not to replace human editors but to make the process more automated,” said Kember of what he called ‘intelligent clipping.’

Its cloud rendering was used by facility MPC in London and the shooting stage in LA for creation of The Jungle Book. “VFX companies are using Google for simulation and beginning to expand their entire production workflow into the cloud. Ultimately, digital intermediate colour correction will go this way too. If you have just released a 2K version of a show and need to do a 4K version you can pull this data from the cloud in minutes, perform all the DI, master the HDR and use Google to distribute.”

DAZN proves value of sports streaming model in DACH and Japan

Sports Video Group Europe

https://www.svgeurope.org/blog/headlines/dazn-streaming-value/

DAZN, the live and on-demand sport service, has only been running 14 months since exploding onto the scene in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Japan. The UK-based streaming division of Perform Group has made big strides from newcomer to big player in the market in that time experiencing significant success in Japan and some hiccups in rolling out its service into Canada.

While DAZN’s subscription model is similar to Netflix’s, the all important live element of sport makes what it is delivering a whole lot more complex. In the past year DAZN have shown over 20 million hours of content.

“Our aim was to establish DAZN in two key but very different markets – ultimately we wanted to prove the business model,” James Rushton, CEO of DAZN tells Sports Video Group Europe. “We’re very happy with how both our launch markets are tracking.”

Along with healthy subscriptions in Japan, DAZN has actually grown attendances for the J.League in Japan, won top rights including the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League in Germany, Austria and Japan from the 2018/19 season, and exclusively aired the biggest sporting event of the year – Mayweather vs McGregor – in three of its territories.

“On a global basis we have added resilience at multiple points,” says Rushton. “We have added a new data centre point of presence in Hong Kong creating an additional link between our Japanese production facility and the Perform Sport Cloud to provide further resilience across our distribution network.”

In production, it launched the live multi-screen produced service J.League Zone, a first for the market. This service allows viewers to follow the biggest games of the day with DAZN editors focusing in on the key moments.

It has also built a brand new production facility in Leeds to support English language output with multiple editing stations, two galleries and live voiceover facilities. Alongside this, there’s a brand new PCR, MCR and playout facility to accommodate the increasing live event output.

The portal will show all 205 games of the UEFA Europa League live in Germany and Austria in the next three seasons. 190 of them will be streamed exclusively, 15 matches will be screened in parallel by a free-to-air TV partner. DAZN will also screen games of the UEFA Champions League from the 2018/19 season. after Perform Group sublicensed the rights from Sky Deutschland

“In Munich, we commissioned a new fast production facility to support the tight deadlines to turn around our exclusive Bundesliga highlights package – 40 minutes after the final whistle – which we have been broadcasting since the opening week of the season,” says Rushton.

Boosting the J.League performance

The J.League is the cornerstone of DAZN’s content offering in Japan. Rushton claims that more people have viewed J.League in DAZN’s first year than (previous incumbent, satellite broadcaster) Sky Perfect had at its peak. It has shown live 20 J.League matches concurrently and regularly deliver in excess of 40 live concurrent events across all of its markets.

“We are showing every single game from all three divisions (J1, J2 and J3) live for the first time and have increased the number and position of cameras and microphones in stadium to make sure fans don’t miss a moment of the action as well as reaction,” says Rushton.

J1 increased from 6 cameras to 9, J2 increased from 4 cameras to 6 and J3 increased from 0 cameras to 3 per game. DAZN also created Sunday J Prime, a showcase fixture that has 16 cameras at the stadium, and the J.League Zone, a programme that covers multiple games simultaneously.

“Our aim is the bring the level of production of the J.League up to the standards of European football,” says Rushton. “Overall, stadium attendances have increased and thanks to our improved content output fan engagement around the clubs, the league and DAZN has also increased. We will continue to evolve the opportunities around programming, both on and off our platform and through our partnership with NTT Group we will be improving connectivity in more stadia.”

The Smart Stadium Project is being rolled out with NTT across Japan. Wi-Fi is being installed in Yurtec Stadium Sendai and Kashima Soccer Stadium, with Nack 5 Stadium Omiya already installed. More stadiums will be announced shortly. The J.League has also developed an app which enables fans to watch the game and DAZN preview show at the stadium.

Canadian rollout challenges

Matters haven’t been as smooth in Canada, where the DAZN service launch in September of exclusive rights to the NFL was afflicted by delayed feeds, bad audio and service skipping. Rushton had to extend an apology to subscribers and offer compensation, although DAZN is far from the only live streamer suffering from Net glitches.

“Live streaming is dependent on multiple factors and they can vary drastically from one home to another, and from one country to another,” he says. “This makes it very complex to deliver exactly the same experience to everyone 100% of the time. There are different internet environments in each home, as well as a vast array of devices being used. It’s a challenge we relish. With the challenge comes huge consumer benefits; we don’t have a legacy business to protect or the infrastructure to pay for. Of course, we don’t have the limitations of linear broadcasting either so we can bring consumers a whole lot more content at a far more affordable price and make it accessible across a wide range of devices.

“We are, and no doubt other OTT services are, always optimising our service and devices to make improvements. We’ve already seen vast improvements and picture quality that rivals linear broadcast. This will continue to improve as more companies move into the streaming space, pushing advancements and technology further.”

The lag between social media and the live stream (where social media tweets beat that of the video stream) is a bugbear of all live sports streamers.

“It’s one of the bigger challenges we face as we know how frustrating it is to find out something about the game before you see it happen,” admits Rushton. “With all forms of broadcast there will always be an element of latency, the challenge facing ourselves and other OTT providers is to bring this as close to, and eventually better, the latency experienced in traditional cable and satellite delivery.

“We are working with our CDN partners, ingest companies and platform providers to reduce this step by step. We have already reduced our latency significantly since launch, and are testing and evaluating how we can roll out improvements across our wide range of clients.”

The imminent entry of deep pocketed internet only players like Amazon, Facebook and Twitter in bidding for premium live sports is a vindication for Perform Group’s launch of DAZN, he says.

Ambitious growth plans

“For us, having more providers come into the market shows that what we’re doing is answering a definite consumer need and expands the market,” says Rushton. “There’s no denying that this is the future of sports.  We’ve learnt a hell of a lot over the past year and having successfully delivered key events such as Mayweather vs. McGregor and having secured key rights shows that we’re ahead of the game.”

“We share ambitious global growth plans and will launch new markets.  As we continue to grow all of our operations will also scale up.”

There is opinion in the wider SVOD market that consumers are not getting value for money or the best experience with such a fragmented array of apps and service with which to watch the content they love. The argument continues that after fragmentation the market will re-aggregate to one or two super aggregator services – a Netflix, a Spotify, an Amazon or a pay-TV operator perhaps.

“I have no doubt that more services will launch and develop, and not just across sport but the whole broadcast market. There may come a time where there’s simply too much choice for consumers and they’d rather have one or two services where they can watch everything. This is something we’ll keep a close eye on so we are able to adapt appropriately.”

BBC 'Reinvents' Free-to-Air Sports Online

Streaming Media 

In a bid to counteract the decimation of its sports coverage, the BBC has announced plans to produce and distribute an additional 1,000 hours a year of sports online. It has termed the move a reinvention of free-to-air sports broadcasting. In reality, though, it is a necessary reaction to the draining of top-tier sports from commercial and publicly funded channels.

http://www.streamingmediaglobal.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/BBC-Reinvents-Free-to-Air-Sports-Online-121529.aspx

In recent years the publicly funded Corporation has been forced to shed prestigious contracts for Formula 1, football, cricket, and golf mainly to competition from pay TV operators led by Sky and, lately, BT Sport.

While it still holds free to air rights to the Olympics in the UK until 2024, it will share coverage with subscribers to Eurosport.

Consequently, the BBC's increase in sports will see it concentrate on currently niche sports in the UK including wheelchair tennis, women's Super League soccer, and British Basketball League. These will be seen through the BBC Sport website and BBC iPlayer. The service will allow for personalisation though details on this have not been revealed. The iPlayer is already on its way to achieving more viewers, as 2016 was its best year to date with 243 million monthly requests on average.

In addition, more content from the BBC's remaining major sports rights will be streamed. These include Wimbledon, the FIFA World Cup until 2022, soccer's Euro 2020 and rugby union's Six Nations. Federations including The All England Lawn Tennis Club, the International Tennis Federation, British Swimming, and British Basketball back the plan to assist the BBC in move live production since they gain the oxygen of publicity to help grow their sports.

Key to the BBC's confidence in being able to stream this volume of content—to audiences that for some of the marquee contracts will run into the millions—is the IP contribution and distribution infrastructure as well as the front-end iPlayer it has been building since London 2012. The Corporation's new £120m regional headquarters in Cardiff, Wales will be its first to be outfitted entirely with IP infrastructure. Due to open in late 2019, the buliding is part of a strategy to shift transport of all signals to IP. The aim is to make cost savings and pave the way for future digital innovation.

Partnered with telco BT, the BBC has already laid an IP network linking all 21 UK broadcasting centres and local radio stations, as well as connecting to its main overseas bureaus and partners for playout of the BBC's TV channels.

The network will carry all video, audio, and data traffic, as well as fixed-line telephony, ISDN and broadband services. IP contribution links have already been introduced at major BBC ingest points in London and Salford, home of BBC Sport. The majority of news and sports production are already using IP contribution.

The IP network will also make it easier for the BBC to work with, and explore, emerging, data-hungry formats like UHD, 360° content and object-based broadcasting.

BBC national and regional facilities will run uncompressed video, but a number of other internet streaming platforms are under consideration. "There is a growing interest among the production community in approaches for very low-cost, low-effort production with which to engage social platforms," according to BBC head of product, systems, and services Tim Sargeant.

Although there isn't a huge difference between the cost of like-for-like SDI and IP equipment, the BBC expects the flexibility offered by IP solutions will mean that savings will be made over time."We are seeing a simultaneous  shift towards service models with cost savings associated with that," said Sargeant.

The BBC is also likely to employ remote production of sports to reduce costs. An example is the control over IP of one or two cameras at a venue from a centralised location.

BBC Director General Tony Hall admitted the BBC has been forced to evolve as a result of the budget for live sport being slashed. "As we have shown time and time again, we will not stand still…not if we want to meet the changing demands of sports fans, not if we want to remain relevant in the media's most competitive marketplace.

"While we're privileged to be funded by the licence fee, it's no secret we don't have the same deep pockets as those we must now compete against but we have unique qualities that are essential for those sports who want to ensure their events are available to – and able to inspire – the widest possible audience."

Hall had earlier warned of the threat to British broadcasting from Netflix and other online streamers. He said their rise would ultimately lead to an annual fall in the amount spent by British broadcasters to around £500 million ($653 million) a year over the next ten years.

In January Hall outlined a strategy to "totally reinvent the iPlayer by 2020 to increase its reach and become a "must-visit destination.”

Is cinema losing the war on innovation?

Screen International
p30 November issue

While cinemas initially forged the way new players and exhibitor caution are creating a gap in visual display quality between theatrical and home entertainment.

http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/html5/reader/production/default.aspx?pubname=&edid=7d9b4648-7afc-48fa-aec5-915b8e27ec04

The cinema industry has consistently managed to innovate the viewing experience ahead of home entertainment but there are signs that this may be stalling. Having introduced projectors capable of playing back content at 4K resolution nearly a decade ahead of TV in 2007, exhibition is on the verge of being leapfrogged by consumer technology.

The number of installed 4K projectors is 27,500, which comprises just 17% of total screens worldwide. Sony took the lead in supporting 4K with its vertically integrated business, which spans content to hardware (projectors, cameras, TVs). Globally, its fleet of roughly 17,000 projectors are 4K compliant. Just 10% of projectors sold by Barco, Christie and NEC are 4K. The highest penetration of such screens are in Thailand (35%), the U.S (40%) and Estonia (52% - of a small total base). In the UK, 32% of screens are 4K [all figs IHS Markit].

“4K has not become the dominant format as many in the industry hoped,” says David Hancock Director, Film and Cinema at IHS Markit.  “There’s been a lack of momentum needed for all productions to go to 4K.”

“Ten years ago, 4K became a buzzword, an added feature– some would say a marketing device – to convince exhibitors to buy 4K instead of 2K projectors but even now, we are seeing only 20% of content released by the studios in 4K,” says Brian Claypool, VP of Product Management for Global Cinema, Christie.

Post production cost

One inhibitor is cost. Production processes can be computationally expensive because of the greater data needing to be transferred, stored and manipulated at every stage.

“This also comes with an increase in artist cost due to the extra detail required,” explains Graham Jack, CTO, Double Negative. “Having the extra resolution available in VFX is often useful, as we may need to zoom in or process the image in some way, but dealing with higher resolutions increases demand on resources.”

Consequently, while more films are being captured using cameras capable of 4K resolution, the majority of films continue to be released in a lower 2K resolution, the equivalent of HD television. Of the 800 titles released in the UK last year only 34 (including Allied, Bad Santa 2) are listed by Sony as being natively produced and delivered with a 4K Digital Cinema Package. Six of those were re-releases of classics remastered to 4K (e.g Kurasawa’s Ran). This year, just nine films are listed (by Sony) with a 4K DCP (including Dunkirk; Kingsman: Golden Circle).

Most other titles screened with a 4K projector are upscaled in postproduction, a process which adds pixels into the picture, although Vue CEO Tim Richards, who has invested heavily in Sony 4K projection, says even movies upscaled in this way “while not 4K will be way better than 2K”Some cinema owners report frustration about having to play 2K movies on 4K screens. “Even most bigger blockbusters are often delivered in 2K,” says Jan Petersen, CTO at Nordisk Film Cinemas. It operates 26 4K screens in Denmark and another 42 in Norway out of a 232 total. “We would like to see more 4K mastered content especially on bigger screens where pixilation can be visible in 2K.”

Owners of independent and boutique screens as much as the mega-chains voice similar concerns, admits Oliver Pasch, Sales Director, Sony Digital Cinema 4K. “We’re at the point now where consumers can pick up a 4K television for a few hundred Euros. And we’ve got fantastic 4K content coming [to the home] from the likes of Netflix and Amazon. As a cinema owner, it’s getting harder to justify charging your customers for anything less than a genuine 4K big-screen experience.”

Although second and third generation 2K projection models can be upgraded to 4K, cinema owners remain unconvinced of the value of the higher resolution alone. Unlike 3D, immersive audio, dynamic or luxury seating exhibitors have not charged consumers a higher ticket price to see films in 4K alone. 4K is more likely to be incorporated into the wider Premium Large Format offer.

“When you blow a 4K picture up you will see a profound difference,” says Richards. “On a bigger screen the 4K image is simply better.”

Better on a large screen

 “We would absolutely like to offer guests more 4K content in our I-Sense auditoriums,” says Mike Bradbury, Odeon Cinemas, Group Head of Sound & Projection. Odeon operates 16 4K projectors in the UK and Ireland that are mostly housed in its I-Sense branded PLF. This will rise to 18 by the end of November out of a total screen base of 942. “The larger the screen, the more 4K is required due to the inevitable pixels enlargement and we would like to ensure definition is maintained.”

The slow adoption of 4K content distribution is compounded by the higher cost of producing 4K DCPs. Furthermore, all 3D screenings are in 2K resolution as there is no 4K 3D standard in digital cinema. This may explain why, in the year to June 2017, of the top 20 films globally (by revenue) 80% were post-produced in 4K, but only two were given a 4K cinema release (source: Futuresource).

However, the minimal perceptual gain offered by the leap in resolution cannot be ignored.

In promoting its projectors, Sony boasts of the “life like detail and rich vivid colour” of 4K which “comes close to the limits of human vision” yet there’s little evidence consumers are aware – or care - if the theatrical content is 2K or 4K.

“There is a visible difference based on viewing distance (the closer to the screen, the better the visual image) but we don’t feel there is room for a price increase based solely on 4K,” says Petersen.

What makes greater visual impact, it is commonly agreed, is higher brightness and greater aesthetic contrast ratios between the dark and light areas of a picture (known as High Dynamic Range).

HDR makes the difference

“Resolution is important but HDR is probably of bigger importance,” Bradbury says.

“4K is a ‘must have’ because movies will eventually shift to 4K but the reality is that moviegoers may not notice how different the image is,” says Jean Mizrahi, president and CEO, Ymagis Group. “The real challenge is not 4K versus 2K, but HDR versus SDR (standard dynamic range). The audience sees the difference when a movie is projected HDR.”

Yet HDR is in a fraction of venues. Market leader Dolby has installed less than 100 HDR-enabled Dolby Cinema screens worldwide – whereas HDR is becoming as defacto in TV displays as 4K.

“Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, HBO are currently making big investments in sourcing HDR content,” says Mizrahi. “This is a key issue for the cinema business.”

While Hancock says there’s no evidence that people are deserting cinema because of a better home experience, “if cinema does stay at 2K then this could yet become an issue,” he warns. “Cinema has been the driver of quality, where breakthrough technology has made the big screen the ultimate viewing experience. We are now seeing these developments happening in other areas.”

“The streaming providers [Netflix, Amazon] have been more aggressive than traditional studios in terms of demand for mastering content at higher than 2K,” says Sherri Potter, svp, Head of Worldwide Post Production Services, Technicolor.

What’s more, the gap between image capture and end display is widening. A new range of cine cameras from Red and Sony are capable of recording 8K pictures (16 times HD). Cinematographers argue that footage shot at this extreme resolution is likely to deliver a richer final picture even when downscaled to 2K for delivery.

According to Futuresource, studios are more likely to acquire at higher resolutions, especially for CGI-heavy titles, for sale as a 4K product to the higher value home market (of last year’s top 20 revenue earners 4 were given a 4K packaged media release, marginally more than for theatrical presentation alone)

The first feature to be largely recorded in 8K, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, was ultimately postproduced and delivered to cinemas in 2K. It’s Disney’s first 4K UHD Blu Ray.

A solution to cinema’s projection bottleneck ironically could emerge from consumer technology. LED screens are being commercialised for theatrical markets by Samsung (with Sony to follow) for theatrical markets. These Direct View or Emissive displays can be configured to any size and promise greater contrast ratios and brightness superior to any projection technology with resolutions up to 16K if desired.

“If ROI [on cinema LED] reaches an affordable level within 3-5 years they are a very good candidate for projector replacement and probably sooner for new builds,” informs Chris Chinnock, founder of analyst Insight Media. “The emissive cinema screen market is so needed to offer image quality with a huge screen format on par or better than the home experience.”

What is 4K?

A 4K Digital Cinema image has a resolution of 4096 x 2160 pixels (4000 horizontal lines) compared to 2K 2048×1080. Since the pixel count increases with the square of the resolution, 4K is four times as computationally expensive as 2K (and 8K is 16 times), according to facility Dneg.

35mm film is considered to have a digital resolution equivalent to 4K. 35mm IMAX film to equate to 6K, while 70mm IMAX is closer to 12K. Regardless of how it is shot, most films will be converted into a digital format for editing, colour grading and vfx (called Digital Intermediate and usually at 2K resolution). While some films are scaled back up to a digital or film print for distribution even IMAX projection systems are not capable of playing back higher than 4K.

Home entertainment 4K Status

The 4K home market emerged with the standardisation of the UHD format in 2012. By the end of 2017 there will be 174 million 4K (UHD) TVs globally, equivalent to 8% penetration (the UK is reckoned to be at 10%). By 2021 that’s expected to reach 32% (figs: Futuresource Consulting) as new displays incorporate 4K as standard.

4K home content (VOD or live sports channels) are sold at a premium through subscription services like Netflix or payTV like Sky Q.

More studio content is mastered in 4K for the home than is projected in cinemas because of the higher value of 4K home content and because Netflix and Amazon are commissioning and distributing 4K TV series. This content is supplemented by 4K live streams (primarily sports). However, there are also bottlenecks in delivery holding back 4K distribution.

“Broadcasters have bandwidth constraints as well as a limited, albeit growing addressable market of 4K TV owners which means that adding a number of UHD channels wouldn’t have a ROI,” says Futuresource analyst Tristan Veale. “Streamed 4K is the most prevalent method, however consumers object to paying extra for UHD content when their slow broadband means they are not receiving a 4K stream for the duration [of the streamed content].”

According to Ampere Analysis, the most effective commercial way of getting studio 4K content into homes is physical media. The 4K Blu-ray Disc (BD) is niche even within the Blu-ray market and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future, it states.

Over 110 70 titles were released in the format in 2016 - its launch year with 90 more expected to have been released by end 2017 (Blu-ray Disc Association). It’s a significant increase but a rate of release that places BD UHD way behind BD at a similar period after the format’s launch, according to Ampere.

It is worth noting that Japan begins broadcasting in 8K domestically from 2018 but few analysts think this extreme resolution will migrate to other countries any time soon.

Overcoming Network Congestion in OTT Video Content Delivery

Knect365 - Media + Networks

Failing to deliver live-streaming premium events to large-scale audiences can be a knock-out blow for operators, writes Adrian Pennington. It is inherently difficult and notoriously unpredictable.

This difficult and unpredictable nature was made clear with the recent Mayweather-McGregor boxing match in Las Vegas for which rights holder ShowTime is now subject of a class action served by consumers who claim they didn’t receive the streaming experience they expected for their US$99.99 PPV fee.

https://knect365.com/media-networks/article/72f751a7-d7ff-472f-845a-35540de18e82/overcoming-network-congestion-in-ott-video-content-delivery?utm_campaign=Share+Widget&utm_medium=Article+Share&utm_source=twitter

Part of the issue lies in the fragmentation of an end to end delivery chain which often involves many companies. This ranges from companies that produce and ‘shape’ the content (picture quality, resolution, audio formats, ad-insertion markers, subtitles) to others that deliver the network packets containing the content. For live streaming, these companies are the national or international content delivery networks (CDNs) feeding into the broadband access networks such as cable, DSL, fibre, Wi-Fi or 3G/4G mobile.  Mostly (but not always), these are all different companies and unpicking problems is extremely tricky.

“The best Quality of Service (QoS) will be delivered through MVPD networks,” says Thierry Fautier, VP, Video Strategy, Harmonic referring to multichannel video programming distributors – traditional payTV providers - which control the full delivery mechanism. “This can be achieved today in ABR (adaptive bitrate) however, it requires a commercial agreement between the virtual MVPD (vMVPD) and MVPD who own the IP network. If vMVPDs want to deliver a high-quality experience, they will have to follow in the footsteps of Netflix and install their own caches in ISP points of presence (PoPs). This only works for top bandwidth-consuming vMVPDs.”

In recent research, CDN Limelight Networks highlighted that video rebuffering (when the video pauses during playback so it can reload) is the most frustrating aspect for consumers of online video viewing, globally. This was followed by poor quality video (when users have to wait for the video to start playing, and when the video is unavailable on the user’s device). When a video stops and rebuffers during playback, 21.6 percent of people worldwide will stop watching. If a video rebuffers twice, more than 61 percent will stop watching. And when a video rebuffers three times, 84.7 percent of the audience is lost. Only 15.3 percent of viewers will continue watching after a video has rebuffered three times.

On the other hand, the class action against ShowTime alleges not just buffering but a less than HD 1080p service, as blurry images apparently from the claimant’s screen appear to show.

“Buffering is always an issue for people watching live events. In fact, that’s why HTTP-based (HLS and MPEG-DASH) live streaming was created – to create a buffer-less experience that used server-based caching to ensure seamless playback of a live event,” says Chris Michaels, Director Communications, at Wowza Media Systems. “However, caching introduces latency for the delivery, meaning that streaming customers could watch something anywhere from 30 seconds to a full two minutes behind an over the air experience.”

He continues, “As some stream providers look to mitigate the latency, they’ve tuned down their HTTP delivery to have smaller chunks, which may cause CPU issues for origin servers, and can complicate things when there are service interruptions or network congestion. Essentially, in the event of an interruption, customers could experience players needing to rebuild the playlist to get the required number of chunks for playback.”

Video issues can crop up at multiple locations in the end to end chain, and usually when one bottleneck is isolated, the next will soon spring up.  Fluctuating and peak demand can cause unpredictable results, especially where the third party CDNs are being used to deliver other voice, data and video at the same time. Using multiple CDNs can facilitate this, but the bottleneck may just move to the access networks, where it’s not so easy to dynamically switch suppliers.

Demand vs. scale

“If it’s local, the question is do you have enough bandwidth and redundant servers to intelligently balance the load?” asks Michaels. “Likewise, for global delivery, are you prepared for regional spikes? Something like the Champion’s League Final (insanely popular globally), or a World Series game (more regionally popular) could vary in demand from fans not only in home markets but around the world.”

Bandwidth is critical. Congestion or instable networks might be caused at the origin (ingress), midgress and even the last mile to the customer. Sending from a sub-optimal network could result in drops and stream failures. Receiving in a sub-optimal network (or a highly congested one) could result in buffering, failed connections from the player, poor image quality and dropped packets (choppy video).

Then there is quality. Most workflows now use ABR streaming to deliver in enough renditions for customers to watch on any kind of device. “However, some ABR delivery systems require you to send all renditions from origin into your CDN or distribution workflow,” explains Michaels. “This means more bandwidth required at the point of origin unless you’re using a transcoding service to then point to your CDN. Even then, you still have to send a minimum of 1080 or 4K stream if you’re trying to reach large TVs.”

Where does it go wrong?

The challenge of figuring out where the video feed is going wrong is highly complex, and takes a combination of passive monitoring (watching ‘on the wire’) and active testing to test the availability of the streams in different regions.

“Ideally, we want to provide an early warning system for video problems such as bad picture quality, accessibility errors, buffering and outages,” says Stuart Newton, VP Strategy & Business Development at Ineoquest, part of Telestream. “This includes testing immediately after the content is produced and packaged, and then periodically at multiple geographic locations after it leaves the content delivery networks (in data centres, on premise or in the cloud). Sampled coverage testing at the edge of access networks, whether broadband cable, Wi-Fi or cellular must also be part of the matrix.”

“Most solutions focus mostly on the last mile and not much at the first mile,” says Michaels. “You have to know the health of your encoder, transcoder, the entire performance through a network and finally playback. The only way to do this, is to install tracking solutions throughout the workflow, and hope that they can talk to one another. Even then, most of the reporting makes for a great post-mortem to know where a failure occurred, not prevent one.”

The need for standards

The market arguably needs to drive towards standards-based broad scale low latency delivery. New emerging standards such as SRT/ Secure Reliable Transport (first mile and possibly CDN) and QUIC from Google (last mile) are addressing these needs.

For CDN ingress and within the CDN, SRT developed by Haivision and made open-source in April 2017 has been endorsed by over 50 companies spanning internet streaming (Wowza, Limelight, etc.) and broadcast contribution (Harmonic, Eurovision, etc.) markets and applications.

SRT allows for a higher level (128 and 256 bit) of encryption around the stream and also alleviates a lot of the packet loss and bandwidth constraints associated with traversing sub-optimal networks.

“SRT seems to be well on its way to replacing RTMP for ingest due to its low latency, bandwidth optimization, firewall traversal, and security,” says Peter Maag, CMO, Haivision. “The market really hasn't settled on the optimal framework for CDN egress to the player. A number of companies including Akamai seem to have a formula but broad standards are needed in this area.”

Michaels points out that, on the playback side, RTMP currently requires Flash for playback, which will cause issues since it’s no longer supported on many devices. Similarly, SRT isn’t yet supported by players natively, and will require some customization or transcoding. He points to his firm’s own protocol, WOWZ (supported by the Wowza Player), as a replacement for low-latency Flash workflows.

“If somewhat higher latency is acceptable for the end-user experience, use HTTP-streaming (e.g. HLS or MPEG-DASH),” he suggests. “You may try a single-bitrate ingest to the cloud to alleviate a lot of bandwidth issues from the venue, and then transcode/transrate on the origin server, or at the edge closest to the customer. This might be beneficial for content that is regionally popular, but might not have global appeal (such as an England vs. New Zealand rugby match that may have high demand in those specific countries).

“The industry needs new techniques for live use cases, based on standards,” demands Fautier. He points to the DVB’s work on an ABR multicast protocol that can be deployed not only on managed networks, but also on the public internet. A standard should be available by early 2018 to cover those two use cases. 

Winter is Coming: Grab a Production Deal

Content Marketing for VMI

http://vmi.tv/news/article/237

It’s that time of year when the nights are drawing in, the Halloween lanterns are primed and Christmas parties are being planned. It’s also traditionally the season when the TV and film industry is at its least busy as productions wind down for the winter months.
But if you think about it, that doesn’t make financial sense. With the majority of productions packed into the summer months every line in the budget will be maximised as projects compete for time, equipment, crew and space. In the autumn and winter, however, smart thinking production managers may be in for a pleasant surprise.
We’ve come to expect better rates if we book during off-peak periods in pretty much every other industry – transport, holidays, hotels. Why should the same not apply to filming?

Camera rental companies are bound to have more inventory on their shelves. The same goes for lighting and hire of all the standard auxiliary shooting kit. Will DPs, camera operators, DITs and sound mixers feel able to command as high a fee as the rest of the year? Studio space, usually at such a premium, will also be impacted positively by simple supply and demand. All of which could add up to you getting much more for your budget.
Not all productions need to have 15 hrs of daylight and the smartest producers and line managers will always examine the potential of every angle to make their budget go farther.

'Choosing to shoot and hire equipment in quieter months of the year has been one of the wisest moves we've made - VMI have not only given us a wonderful service, but they have been able to provide us with the very best resources and equipment for our latest movies Fox Trap and 12 Deaths of Christmas - which we shot January last year and January this year! It's a great time for any filmmaker to be shooting and has truly benefitted our projects.'

Rebecca Fletcher, Proportion Productions

Clearly, if you’re thinking about this in December then it’s already too late. Which is why now is just the right time to consider greenlighting a project with principal photography through the winter months.
Don’t wait until the New Year with everyone else to scrabble for a bargain, when there are great tailored deals to be had today.
Image courtesy of Proportion Productions, shot on location during the production of "Fox Trap"  

Discovery and Eurosport Unveil Digital First Winter Olympics

Streaming Media

European rightsholder marks first Olympics coverage with major social media, mobile and interactive overhaul.
http://www.streamingmediaglobal.com/Articles/News/Featured-News/Discovery-and-Eurosport-Unveil-Digital-First-Winter-Olympics-121439.aspx

With just 100 days before South Korea opens the Winter Olympics, European rightsholder Discovery promises a record-breaking online viewing experience. It will make every minute of coverage available online for viewers across Europe via its sports platform Eurosport. This will make it the first fully digital Olympics for Europe, Discovery claims.
Its live and on-demand coverage will deliver to 48 markets with all the action collated on Eurosport Player available online on mobile, tablets, and connected TVs. More than 4,000 hours of coverage and 100 events will be available, including 900 hours of live action, more than ever before across the continent.
Editorially, Discovery are offering fans the chance to personalise their own Olympic viewing. Beyond choice of stream, few details are offered at this stage but we expect this to mean users can curate their own Olympic programme by selecting to follow countries, athletes, events, and other criteria.
Social media is a significant new approach to previous Olympics coverage. Discovery’s partnership with Snap Inc will see UGC and behind-the-scenes content from PyeongChang published to Snapchat users in Europe.
Discovery and Snapchat already work together in the U.S., where Discovery creates mobile shows for Snapchat’s Discovery platforms. During Discovery’s Shark Week, 17 million viewers watched Shark Week content on Snapchat.
Snapchat is used by 57 million people daily in Europe.
A dedicated mobile digital studio on the ground in PyeongChang will work with digital influencers, embedded into editorial teams, to create bespoke content for social media focused on engaging millennials.
Jean-Briac Perrette, Discovery Networks International President and CEO, said in a statement: "PyeongChang 2018 marks the first Olympic Games of our ground-breaking long-term partnership with the International Olympic Committee. We want to redefine the Olympic Games experience for the viewer with immersive storytelling, unrivalled expert talent and an all-screen strategy reaching new and younger audiences. We know that viewers want more: more access to their local heroes, more expertise and more ways to watch the Olympic Games, and this is exactly what we are bringing to fans across Europe."
Augmented reality technology will be used to share a greater understanding of winter sport events. For example, Sport Explainers will use AR and data to create films "that delve deeper into the technical explanations of winter sports, showing how the world’s best athletes win gold," the company said.
Discovery paid €1.3 billion ($1.45 billion) for pan-European rights for four Olympic Games from 2018 to 2024. Under terms of the deal broadcasters in some territories, including UK and France, also retain rights to free to air coverage for those tournaments.
A year ago Discovery inked a deal with digital streaming specialist BAMTech to launch BAMTech Europe, a new digital technology provider, intended to re-invigorate Eurosport’s digital streaming offer as well as provide expertise to third parties.
Since then, ESPN parent Disney has taken full control of BAMTech. It is not clear how this has impacted the deal with Discovery. In Europe, Eurosport and ESPN would not necessarily be seen as competitive, but other sports broadcasters may not want to share a tech partner with a potential rival.
Ahead of the BAMTech announcement, Discovery poached Ralph Rivera from the BBC to lead Eurosport’s digital transformation. At the BBC, Rivera, was responsible for all of the BBC’s digital media services, including delivering the first truly digital Olympic Games for London 2012.