January 2012

Transcription

January 2012

TVBE Jan P1 news_TVBE_Aug_P_news 11/01/2012 11:29 Page 1
Inside: Fast Turnaround TV, Red Cameras, 3D Market Report
TVBEUROPE
Europe’s television technology business magazine
www.tvbeurope.com
JANUARY 2012
£5.00/€8.00/$10.00
Sensor sizes to have large
implications for acquisition
New sensor designs are changing the
industry, but are all the changes for the
better — and which compromises are worth
making to take advantage of them?
David Fox reports from the leading edge
of Acquisition Innovations
Most of the exciting new cameras recently
have had larger sensors, higher resolution
and/or higher frame rates. Creatively, this
is ideal if you want shallow depth of field
and have the lenses to match, while higher
resolution is always good — until you
look at the additional storage and bandwidth requirements.
“High resolution, high speed, sensor
size and processing can each bring benefits to the content. However, significant
benefit to the viewing experience occurs
when any of these factors are combined;
for example, shooting at 4k x 2k resolution at 50fps progressively results in content that benefits from both image detail
and also motion characteristics, to give
the best possible overall experience,” says
John Kelly, general manager, JVC
Professional Europe.
“Sports and natural history are particular areas where high resolution content
will benefit the viewer, particularly when
acquired at a high progressive frame rate,”
he adds.
However, “larger sensors and higher
resolution do not provide really new creative benefits, they just compensate for the
drawbacks of digital camera technology
compared to film,” argues Michael
Erkelenz, manager of P+S Technik’s
Digital Capture Business Unit, who sees
flexible speed rates — such as those offered
by its new PS-Cam X35 — as offering far
more creative benefit.
“Bigger sensors also mean bigger
lenses. If it’s going to transition from
today’s HD formats to bigger sensors or
higher resolution sensors, it has a major
impact on the whole workflow. The rest
First delivery: Sony will build all 10- and 24-camera trucks for Panorama
Russia’s Olympic plans
OB Focus Part II
By Philip Stevens
The need for speed: Michael Erkelenz
with P+S Technik’s new PS-Cam X35
of the chain is being impacted,” says
Ronny Van Geel, Grass Valley’s director
of Product Management, Cameras. For
broadcasters who have only recently
invested in HD, it would require yet
another wave of investment.
Acquisition Innovations
TVBEurope takes an in-depth look at the
implications of the latest sensor technology
and other key innovations in acquisition,
including new broadcast cameras and lenses,
in our Acquisition Innovation section,
beginning page 26 — Fergal Ringrose
In these times of economic difficulty, the
placement of an order for 12 outside
broadcast vehicles from one customer is
welcome news for the industry. And that
number of trucks is what Russian production facility Panorama needs in order to
fulfil its commitment to cover the Winter
Olympics and Paralympics in Sochi in
three years time, as well as the XXVII
World Summer University Games in
Kazan in 2013.
In all, coverage at 11 venues is required
for Sochi, while around 30 sites are
involved with the Kazan games. (Although
the organisation is operating under the
brand name of Panorama, the official
legal name of the company is ANO Sports
Broadcasting.)
For the games’ coverage, Panorama is
now training around 1500 television professionals to handle the various production
and engineering functions of the games.
Panorama was founded as an
autonomous non-profit organisation by
several Russian broadcasting outlets and
the RIA Novosti news agency in
December 2009.
Global Award Winner
To learn more, please visit www.broadcast.harris.com/Selenio.
Sergey Podlesskii: “No existing station or
production company had enough resources”
“On the government level it was decided
that for an event like the Olympics, no
existing station or production company
had enough resources to make a production for international standards,” states
Sergey Podlesskii, the company’s CTO
(head of Production Technology). “Also
an idea of ‘national signal’ — a production focused on Russian athletes and emotions of Russian fans — led broadcasters
to create a joint structure to produce a
transmission for all Russian viewers.”
Full story, page 14
Project1_Layout 1 09/12/2011 11:26 Page 1
TVBE Jan P3 News_TVBE_Aug_P_news 11/01/2012 13:22 Page 3
TVBEU R O PE N E W S & A N A LY S I S
Two Gold Sponsors and first end-user case study announced for TVBE’s new conference
EVS, NRK and Quantel first for Fast
By Fergal Ringrose
Industry heavyweights EVS and
Quantel have come on board as first
Gold Sponsors for TVBEurope’s
Fast Turnaround TV 2012 conference set for 13 March at The Soho
Hotel in London.
And the first user case study
presentation we can announce is
‘Hurtigruten: Five-day Television
Marathon in the Midnight Sun’, presented by Thomas Hellum, project
manager at NRK. The Norwegian
broadcaster set a Guinness World
Record in Summer 2011 by broadcasting a programme lasting for
134:42:45 hours – the world’s longestever live television documentary.
The Norwegian Coastal Express
brings people and goods from
Bergen to Kirkenes all year round;
and last summer over 65% of
Norway’s population took the journey simultaneously, thanks to
NRK’s live TV and web coverage.
Letter to the Editor
Dear Sir,
In October we issued a press
release regarding a new
President for FOR-A Company
Limited Japan. Mr. Katsuaki
Kiyohara has become the company’s new President. The former President, Mr. Keizo
Kiyohara, is assuming a new
role as Chairman of the Board
of Directors of FOR-A Company Limited and continuing on
as the CEO of FOR-A Group.
The brief in the People
on the Move section of
TVBEurope’s November issue
states that Katsuaki Kiyohara
is now also becoming the
Chairman of the Board and
CEO of FOR-A Group, which
is not true. Those are the responsibilities of Keizo Kiyohara.
I’m sure the error was caused
because there were two individuals with the same last name
discussed in the release.
Robin Hoffmann
Pipeline Communications
On behalf of:
For-A Company Limited
NRK2 normally has a market share
of 4-5%: within days of the set-off,
average market share was 36%.
NRK will tell the Fast Turnaround TV audience how it produced the five-day event, from a
moving vessel at sea, that was live
on TV and received 12 million page
views on Facebook and 22,000,000
impressions on Twitter — and was
streamed in 179 countries.
As this issue closed for press,
we were on the point of confirm-
ing two major keynote addresses
for the conference. And response
to our early ‘Save the Date’ emails
has been excellent, with broadcasters around Europe expressing
strong interest.
We’ve already had solid enquiries
from Russian State Television,
Sematron Italia, Reuters, Seychelles
Broadcasting Corp, VGTRK, RAI
Radiotelevisione Italia, CNN, Red
Bee, BHRT, RTBF Belgium, Fox
Europe, Greenlight Television, L-S-B
Broadcast, Studio Hamburg Post
Production, Technicolor and others.
Among the job titles of those
expressing interest in our new
conference — which will look at
the technologies and workflows
behind big watercooler TV shows
— are Operations Manager, Independent Director, Global Head of
Operations, Principal Engineer TV,
Managing Director, Director of
PTD, Assignment Editor, Director
of Technical Development, Senior
Broadcast Engineer, Senior Operator, Project Manager, General
Director, Technical Operations
Manager, R&D Manager and
Senior Technical Specialist.
Fast Turnaround TV 2012 will
be chaired by senior broadcast
consultant John Ive. Watch this
space as we release details on the
keynotes and case studies from our
conference programme.
www.fastturnaroundTV.com
JVC announced the GYHMQ10, the world’s first handheld 4K camcorder, this week at
CES in Las Vegas. The camera,
which captures, records and plays
back video at four times the resolution of HD, will have a list
price of £5,090 and is expected to
ship in March.
Its small size (about the same
as JVC’s GY-HM150 ProHD camcorder) and low price means it will
not only appeal as a B camera for
users of larger 4K cameras, but
also as set and forget camera for
HD use, where the ability to crop
and pan full HD images from the
4K image could be very useful.
The camera is powered by JVC’s
Falconbrid large-scale integration
chip for high-speed signal processing and has a 1/2-inch CMOS
sensor with 8.3 million active pixels,
which delivers realtime 3840x2160
footage at 24p and 50p.
“We’re witnessing the birth
of what is destined to become a
broad market for full 4K endto-end production,” said JVC
Professional Europe Product
Manager Gustav Emrich.
“The GY-HMQ10 is a breakthrough product that opens up 4K
imaging to users who previously
wouldn’t have considered it.”
Falconbrid processing takes the
raw image data from the sensor
and deBayers it in realtime. Unlike
many high-end 4K cameras, the
GY-HMQ10 can output 4K
images to a monitor or projector
in realtime with virtually no latency.
It records using MPEG-4/
H.264 compression, with a variable bit rate of up to 144Mbps,
and can record up to two hours of
4K video to low-cost SDHC or
SDXC memory cards (it uses
four cards at a time to capture the
four high definition images that
combine to create the 4K version).
1-12 News & Analysis
8 DPP and AS-11
George Jarrett applauds the
one voice approach that UK
broadcasters have adopted
for resolving a batch of file
format and workflow issues
11 3DTV market
report 2012
Is the previous trajectory
charted by HD the most
pertinent guide to an
emergence of 3D television
as a mature product? Adrian
Pennington investigates
14-25 OB Focus Part Two
14 Building a game plan
Philip Stevens talks to
Panorama about the supply
of OB vehicles to cover the
Winter Olympics and
Paralympics in Sochi and
XXVII World Summer
University Games in Kazan
18 Adventurous 3D
Adrian Pennington reports
on the 3D production
learning curve behind the
new Safari Adventure series
JVC unveils world’s first
handheld 4K camcorder
By David Fox
CONTENTS
20 Ice work at North Pole
24
Four sight: The GY-HMQ10 is the
latest part of JVC’s push to 4K
production and display
It can deliver live 4K output via
four HDMI terminals.
It also records 1080i or 1080/
50p HD, on a single card in a format compatible with most editing
systems. Cropping a high definition image from a 4K frame can
be done in post, or in realtime
during camera playback, using a
trimming feature on the camera’s
3.5-inch touchscreen LCD.
“It’s part of a larger move at
JVC to bring 4K technology to a
wide range of customers,” said
Emrich. “4K is the logical step
beyond HD.”
www.jvcpro.eu
The BBC’s latest natural history
series has won worldwide
acclaim. Philip Stevens
discovers some of the technical
aspects to its success
At the heart of
communications
Digital technology has
pushed its analogue
counterpart on to the
sidelines in most areas of
sports broadcasting but
commentary is one vital
element for which this has
not happened completely,
writes Kevin Hilton
26-38 Acquisition
Innovations
26 David Fox talks to end-users
and vendors about the key
developments in camera
speed, lenses and sensors
as we head into 2012
40 The Business Case
40 Mosart orchestrates
TV news production
What’s the story behind the
Norwegian company that
claims to be the number one
newscast automation provider
in Europe with more than 70%
market share? Dick Hobbs
takes a look
42 News & Analysis
42 UltraViolet
breakthrough
UltraViolet launches into
Europe — while the
headache of fragmented
online video delivery could
be nearing the end, reports
Adrian Pennington
www.tvbeurope.com J A N U A RY 2 0 1 2
3
TVBE Jan P4 News_TVBE_Aug_P_news 11/01/2012 15:24 Page 4
TVBEU R O PE N E W S & A N A LYS I S
NEWS
IN BRIEF
People on the move
SMPTE Forum lineup
The Society of Motion Picture &
Television Engineers (SMPTE) has
announced its lineup for The Forum on
Emerging Media Technologies, an
executive-level symposium to be held
by the Society in May in Geneva and
produced in collaboration with the
European Broadcasting Union (EBU).
Presenters will include those from ABC
Australia, ATSC, BSkyB, EBU, the
Fraunhofer Institute, Grass Valley,
IBM, Intel, NHK, Radio Television Hong
Kong, Sony, Warner Bros, and zeebox.
SMPTE also announced that the
early-bird deadline for registration
ends 31 January. Over the course of
two days, The Forum will provide a
science-based, non-commercial
opportunity for executives and other
senior leaders from the broadcast,
broadband, and cinema industries to
discuss the most important and
innovative research taking place over
the next 10-15 years, with a particular
focus on technologies likely to come
to market within the next three years.
www.smpteforum.com
Alan Yentob, BBC
Geir Bryn-Jensen, Nevion
Bob Boster, Clear-Com
Richard Ruse, JBL Professional
By Melanie Dayasena-Lowe
company president. Boster will
be based in the Clear-Com office
in Alameda, California, and will
report to Mitzi Dominguez, president of HME.
Grass Valley welcomes industry veteran Colin Hay as its vice
president for the Northern EMEA
region. In his new role, Hay will be
located in the UK, reporting
directly to Alan Wright. Hay previously served as director Strategic
Accounts at Red Bee Media.
Richard Ruse has joined JBL
Professional as senior director of
Global Sales, reporting directly
to VP/GM Mark Ureda. Ruse
has held key management positions with such companies as
Alesis, Line 6, KRK and SWR.
Publisher of TVBEurope
Intent Media has announced new
hires on sister publications
Installation Europe and Pro
Sound News Europe. Expansion
of the Installation Europe team
continues with the appointment
Canford in Dubai
Canford is opening a Dubai sales office
to move closer to partners in one of
its most important markets and will
open before the CABSAT show. It will
also offer a platform to service some
of the rapidly emerging East and
North African markets. “Canford has
been operating within the region very
successfully for over 20 years now. So
much so that most of our top 10
export markets are in the Middle
East” explained Canford CEO Leif
Friestad. “Our products already form
the core infrastructure of some of the
region’s major projects such as the
Education City in Doha
and the television centre in Riyadh.
Opening this office reflects our
continued commitment to our
partners in the region and enables us
to react even more quickly to their
needs. It also gets around practical
issues like the time difference, we can
respond there and then.”
www.canford.co.uk
EBU serves up
Wimbledon
The European Broadcasting Union
(EBU) has won the competitive bid for
the global distribution of The
Championships, Wimbledon, for 20122014, renewing its current distribution
contract. The contract was awarded by
IMG Media in its capacity as The
Championships Official Wimbledon
production partner, appointed by The
All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC).
Eurovision, the distributor of sports
content for the world’s top broadcast
and media platforms, will provide a full
range of services for the international
broadcast community during the two
weeks of the tournament. This will
include global delivery of the World
Feed in HD, plus a 10-court package for
the European market, also in HD.
www.ebu.ch
4
The Associated Press has
appointed Markus Ickstadt to the
board of Associated Press
Germany where he will serve as
its managing director. He
replaces Nigel Baker who had
held the role since 2009. Baker
leaves the AP to join the
Thomson Media Foundation as
chief executive.
Alan Yentob, the BBC’s creative
director, is to join the board of
BBC Studios and Post Production
as a non-executive director. A
commercial subsidiary of the
BBC, the company offers studios,
post production and digital
media services to the media industry from London’s Television
Centre, Elstree and Bristol.
Clear-Com, an HME company, has named Bob Boster,
previously vice president of
Worldwide Sales, as the company’s new president. Boster succeeds Matt Danilowicz, formerly
of James McGrath as staff
writer. “With his background in
local newspaper journalism and
commercial copywriting, I’m
confident that James will be a
strong addition to the Installation
Europe team,” said Editor Paddy
Baker. As well as writing for the
brand, James will be representing
IE in the marketplace, including
at ISE in Amsterdam at the end
of this month. The magazine also
welcomes Ian Graham as its
new sales manager, completing
the new IE team following the
recent arrival of Les Wood as
sales executive.
Joining Pro Sound News
Europe as staff writer is
Canadian-born Erica Basnicki.
“Erica brings a phenomenal set
of skills to the brand,” said
Editor David Robinson. “She’s
been a journalist and writer for
nearly a decade, she blogs, she
knows web design and she’s
worked as a professional sound
engineer too. Wow! Having
Erica onboard is going to place
PSNE in an incredibly strong
position as we look towards our
Frankfurt redesign.”
Nevion chairman Per Otto Dyb
has announced the appointment of
technology and business development veteran Geir Bryn-Jensen as
Nevion CEO. Bryn-Jensen, who
previously served as executive vice
president of sales and marketing,
joined Nevion in 2010.
Carter Holland has joined
NewTek as executive vice president
Spanish post production company
Free Your Mind has invested in an
SGO Mistika 2K System with a DI
Module to replace its existing technology and enhance the current
infrastructure. In order to meet the
growing demand of commercials
production, Free Your Mind has
placed Mistika as its post production tool of choice. Mistika’s
advanced set of tools is wider and
more flexible than any other system,
or combination of other systems,
without compromising creativity or
quality, while maintaining the highest output speed at the same time.
Commercials production is a
highly pressurised environment
with tight time schedules, which
require immediate feedback,
along with accurate and thorough image treatment, and a
consistent workflow between the
various departments. Mistika will
play a vital role in this entire
process and will be key in managing projects efficiently. The system
can also deal effectively with the
most tedious tasks, which will
free up the creativity time of
compositors, colourists and digital artists at the facility. It will
also be used for customer-attend-
Colin Hay, Grass Valley
Nick Lim, OASYS
James McGrath (Installation Europe) and Erica Basnicki
(Pro Sound News Europe), Intent Media
Mistika system is commercial star
of worldwide marketing. From
2000 to 2007, Holland implemented global programs at Avid that
helped double revenues to just
under $1 billion annually.
OASYS has hired Nick Lim
as director, Americas and Asia
Pacific Sales. Based in the
United States, he will be responsible for expanding OASYS’ distribution network and developing sales opportunities in the
target territories.
ed sessions, working in realtime,
for client interaction.
Partner of Free Your Mind,
Eduardo Jiménez, stated: “SGO’s
software solution is excellent for
our projects, and ideal for film
and commercials, which is the
arena in which we are immersed.
The compositing and colour
correction tools that Mistika
has and, overall, the workflow
benefits, have been key to us
arriving at the decision to
purchase the system.” He added:
“Enhancing our capabilities
with a Mistika system was an
obvious move for us in order to
accommodate our growing commercials projects. Mistika’s
impressive toolset also makes it
the most desirable and interactive
solution in the industry and it is
very exciting to be utilising the
most advanced technology available in the world.”
José Luis Acha, sales director
at SGO in Spain, explained:
“Opting for a Mistika system was
a logical progression to fortify
collaborative workflows, as exciting
projects flow in. Mistika’s phenomenal power in DI and Stereo
3D has opened opportunities
for filmmakers and commercials
agencies to create exciting content now and in the future.”
www.fym.tv
www.sgomistika.com
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TVBE Jan P6 news_TVBE_Oct_P_news 11/01/2012 11:36 Page 6
TVBEUROPE
Acquisition and OBs in focus
EDITORIAL
By Fergal Ringrose
Europe’s television technology business magazine
Editorial Director Fergal Ringrose
tvbeurope@mediateam.ie
Media House, South County Business Park,
Leopardstown, Dublin 18, Ireland
+3531 294 7783 Fax: +3531 294 7799
Deputy Editor Melanie Dayasena-Lowe
Melanie.Dayasena-Lowe@intentmedia.co.uk
Intent Media London, 1st Floor, Suncourt House,
18-26 Essex Road, London N1 8LN, England
+44 207 226 7246
Editorial Consultant Adrian Pennington
Associate & Web Editor David Fox
USA Correspondent Carolyn Giardina
Contributors Mike Clark, Richard Dean,
Chris Forrester, Jonathan Higgins, Mark Hill,
Dick Hobbs, John Ive, George Jarrett,
Heather McLean, Bob Pank, Nick Radlo,
Neal Romanek, Philip Stevens, Reinhard E Wagner
Digital Delivery David Davies, Paul Watson
Digital Content Manager Tim Frost
Managing Director Stuart Dinsey
ART & PRODUCTION
Head of Production Adam Butler
Editorial Production Manager Dawn Boultwood
Senior Production Executive Alistair Taylor
SALES
Publisher Steve Connolly
steve.connolly@intentmedia.co.uk
+44 207 354 6000 Fax:+44 207 354 6049
Sales Manager Ben Ewles
ben.ewles@intentmedia.co.uk
+44 207 354 6000 Fax:+44 207 354 6049
US SALES
Michael Mitchell
Broadcast Media International, PO Box 44,
Greenlawn, New York, NY 11740
mjmitchell@broadcast-media.tv
+1 (631) 673 3199 Fax: +1 (631) 673 0072
JAPAN AND KOREA SALES
Sho Harihara
Sales & Project, Yukari Media Incorporated
sho@yukarimedia.com
+81 6 4790 2222 Fax: +81 6 4793 0800
CIRCULATION
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Free subscriptions:
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Printing by Pensord Press, Tram Road,
Pontllanfraith, Blackwood NP12 2YA
Question: What TV series spent four years in
production, 1.5 years at sea, over six months on
the sea ice and 134 hours filming under the ice?
Answer: The BBC’s Frozen Planet, with
voiceover by Sir David Attenborough, giving us
a portrait of the four seasons at the last great
wilderness on earth, the Polar Regions. Philip
Stevens’ in-depth interview with Producer Mark
Linfield is just one of a series of major feature
stories in our extensive OB Focus Part II section, starting on page 14.
When shooting in Africa or a big production
with Sir David is out of the question, the answer
may be to find a controlled location where
economies of scale can be achieved. In OB
Focus Part II, Adrian Pennington reports on the
3D production learning curve behind 10 x 60’
documentary series Safari Adventure.
Following our cover story this month,
Stevens explores the gigantic task facing Russian production company Panorama to fulfil its commitment to covering the Winter
Olympics and Paralympics in Sochi in three years time — as well
as the XXVII World Summer University Games in Kazan in 2013.
“Large sensors have provided perhaps the most creative benefit […] by enabling cinematographers to come closer to replicating
the look of film. Shallow depth of field and low light sensitivity
are often listed as the most obvious benefits, but improved dynamic
range is also very important,” says Peter Yabsley from Canon
Europe in our in-depth Acquisition Innovations section also this
month, starting page 26.
Red Digital Cinema has always taken its own
idiosyncratic approach to the marketplace —
most definitely following in the footsteps of
the late Steve Jobs
The key new technology trends at the higher end of the broadcast
camera marketplace recently, according to our Associate Editor David
Fox, have been a move to large sensors, higher resolution and higher
frame rates. Fox takes us through all the leading-edge changes in the
company of Canon’s Yabsley, along with: Milan Krsljanin
and Marc Shipman-Müller, Arri; Peter Sykes, Sony; Jeff Cree and Seth
Emmons, Band Pro; Michael Erkelenz, P+S Technik; Patrick Ott de
Vries and Rick Robinson, Vision Research; Ronny van Geel and Marcel
Koustaal, Grass Valley; and Gustav Emrich and John Kelly, JVC.
Red Digital Cinema has always taken its own idiosyncratic
approach to the marketplace — most definitely following in the
footsteps of the late Steve Jobs in terms of seeking to create desire,
exclusivity and a slavishly devoted user community. They’ve
always done things their own way — and the Red One, after all,
was the first affordable digital cinema camera.
Intent Media is a member of the
Periodical Publishes Association
© Intent Media 2012. All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the
prior permission of the copyright owner. TVB Europe is mailed to qualified
persons residing on the European continent. Subscription rates £64/€96/$120.
Allow 8 weeks for new subscriptions and change of address delivery.
Send subscription inquiries to: Subscription Dept, Intent Media,
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ISSN 1461-4197
6
Since then, though, there has been the DSLR revolution and
large sensor cameras released by many other manufacturers. And
now, after some false starts, Red is shipping its next-generation 5K
camera, the Epic. How does it measure up and can it have the
same impact as its predecessors — and what about the lower-cost
Scarlet option? In this issue Fox talks Red with DoPs Ben Spence
and Olly Wiggins, along with Mark Lloyd from root6.
Beyond the research lab (and medical applications), high-speed
camera technology is gathering pace, from adding frame rates
above 100fps for conventional cameras to providing continuous
super slow motion output for sports and other events. This issue
we bring you a guide to what’s new in high-speed cameras from
Arri, For-A, Grass Valley, Hitachi, I-Movix, Live Motion
Concept, NAC, P+S Technik, Vision Research and Weisscam.
With the rapid change in cameras seen recently, one of the
safest places to invest your money is in glass. Good quality lenses
that work with any of the popular cameras will always be in
demand. We take a look at how high quality lenses and large sensors are good for business, in discussion with Abakus, Angenieux,
Arri, Band Pro, Birger, Canon Europe, Chrosziel, Cooke Optics,
Fujinon, Grass Valley, Leica, Pyser-SGI and Zeiss.
Now why do I point all of this out to you here? Well, simply
this: in what is traditionally the quietest month of the year in the
broadcast calendar, I’m very proud that our team has brought you
well over 20 original, individually commissioned feature stories in
our January issue of TVBEurope and I wanted to bring that to
your attention!
Especially in the area of Acquisition Innovation: after reading
our special section this issue, drop me a line to tvbeurope@
mediateam.ie if you can tell me anywhere else in the world you can
read such in-depth coverage, in one place, across broadcast camera/
lens technologies and innovations. Anyone?
Metadata focus for BBC production
By Adrian Pennington
TVBEurope is published 12 times a year by
Intent Media London, 1st Floor, Suncourt House,
18-26 Essex Road, London N1 8LN, England
Frozen Planet: A detailed portrait of the last great wilderness
on Earth, the Polar Regions, narrated by Sir David Attenborough
The BBC is experimenting with iPads to
speed production and better incorporate
metadata at the point of acquisition for use
throughout the programme’s lifecycle.
The focus of the Automated Production project at BBC R&D and demonstrated
at BBC R&D North is to use data and
networking tools to power programme
workflow. Alongside major pieces of IT
research for post production and playout,
it is an attempt “to take it back toward
the cameras and to the people making the
programmes,” explained Lead Technologist Jon Rosser.
In the demonstration of a Portable
Production Tool, video was captured to a
server and connected by Wi-Fi to an iPad
or multiple iPads on which a bespoke Final
Cut Pro-style app allows production team
members to view proxies and annotate and
share that material instantly. It has been trialled on BBC3 sitcom Mongrels.
“The app allows quick rough cut topping
and tailing if necessary. The beauty of this is
that all the data is stored locally on iPad
while the video is held on the server. Every
time you connect to the server it updates,”
said Rosser.
“The challenge for production is how to
generate sufficiently rich metadata when it
has become very easy to film and far harder
and more time consuming to log it. We’re
looking at speech detection, speech to text,
to help here. We are interested in the production planning phase because a lot of
rich media is generated there without being
captured for potential future use.”
“With an IP-enabled production environment we can move away from analogue
and very bespoke, expensive equipment
to using commodity devices,” said
BBC North R&D Project Director Adrian
Woolard. “Our work is an extension of
DMI [Digital Media Initiative] and Fabric
by looking at how IP can enable production and how IP-enabled production can
feed back up the chain to archive and
everything else in between.”
www.bbc.co.uk/rd/
Ed Note: This article first appeared on our
TVBE Fast Turnaround TV enewsletter. To
subscribe to TVBE Fast Turnaround TV or
any of our other enewsletters, just click on
Newsletters at the top of our homepage
www.tvbeurope.com
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TVBE Jan P8-12 News_TVBE_SEPT_P21_37_sports 11/01/2012 13:58 Page 8
The DPP and AS-11: Revolutionising
digital workflows through broadcasting
Following the path of least
resistance: George Jarrett
applauds the ‘one voice’ approach
that broadcasters in the UK have
adopted for resolving a batch of file
format and workflow issues. In the
DPP, the industry has a proactive
force that links technologists with
producers in an empathetic way.
One result is AS-11...
Formed early in 2010, the Digital
Production Partnership (DPP)
has made huge progress with
twinned targets that promise to
revolutionise digital workflows
throughout broadcast production. Along with the establishing
work that created the new delivery
file format AS-11 for HD content,
the DPP has had to simultaneously travel back up the food
chain to help resolve the confusion caused by the plethora of
other file formats, and the varied
camera codecs.
The DPP report ‘Breaking
Down the Barriers to Digital
Production in Television’ is to be
followed in March by another
which looks at what producers do
and don’t know, what they want
to know, and how they might be
moved swiftly and smoothly into
adopting end-to-end production
workflows, free of ugly and
costly transforms.
A special forum held at the
BBC, to generate content for the
next report, was based around
small groups and game scenarios
consisting of two types of commissioned work for which workflows had to be produced. The
front man for this event was Mark
Harrison, controller of production with BBC North.
“We arrange a forum every
quarter, and they are always
around best practice,” he says.
“This forum was a special because
it was particularly about trying to
help us do the development work
around the recommended best
practise to be published as guidelines in March.”
Mark Harrison: “How can vendors
know the perfect workflow if they
never talk to people trying to make
this stuff in battlefield conditions?”
The DPP — funded by the BBC,
ITV and C4, with support from Sky,
Red Bee, C5, S4C and top people
from the independent sector —
“The DDP is the sponsor of AS-11,
so I thought it would be good for
it to have a formalised specification for the work, which is why we
are pushing it for wider acceptance
through AMWA,” he says.
“We decided to enhance AS-03
to create AS-11 because we needed AVC Intra, which was not
required for AS-03. The limit in
AS-03’s bit rate meant we had to
define a new codec, new bit rate,
and all the other metadata bits
that go with the DPP spec.
“There is no deviation from
MXF at all. Only SMPTE standards
are used. It is just about having the
application spec, so which bits of the
MXF toolkit do you use? That is the
important part — telling people how
to make their own MXF files,” he
adds. “I think AS-11 will be successful, because it is certainly better than
any other mechanism we currently
have at our disposal. The EBU has
now said let’s take a look at AS-11
because it is a good idea that
European public service broadcasters might like to follow.
“It is not really the delivery
mechanism that counts here. It
is what is the payload, and how
interoperable is the payload going
to be?” he continues. “There are
too many conflicting file formats
behind us along the chain, so we
have gone for one and that’s it. And
that is going to be the delivery format as specified. If we do not step
back up stream, production companies will end up with a ridiculous
transform at the end of the creation
process just to make it compliant
with the delivery format — which
of course is not the idea at all.”
Asked if the DPP had to track
back towards acquisition, Harrison
says: “Absolutely right, yes, but not
necessarily to result in a single file
format. We will never do that, but we
can say ‘these are the lines of least
resistance. If you do these things, in
this kind of order, you will have the
smoothest possible journey’.
“It is not our job to recommend any particular manufacturer
or supplier. If you go to NAB or
IBC, on many of the stands you
will see slogans offering some fantastic end-to-end workflow solutions. Those people have almost
certainly never spoken to an independent producer,” he adds.
“How can they know what the
perfect end-to-end workflow is if
they never talk to the people trying to make this stuff in battlefield conditions?”
Asked about the common gripe
that producers jump at too many
cheap camera deals, in the mistaken
belief that budgets can be shaved
to the minimum, Harrison says:
“There is obviously a bit of a battle
ground currently between what a
DoP might want, what a producer
might want, and what a post
“We have been delighted with the standards work,
and to see the enthusiasm of bodies like the EBU.
They’ve been impressed that we in the UK have
managed to talk together and face problems with
one voice” – Mark Harrison, BBC North
The DPP message to production
teams is, ‘Understand what the
delivery format is, and work
backwards from that, making
sure you do your production
work in the way that follows the
path of least resistance.’
Kevin Burrows was due to
meet the EBU for an AS-11 briefing in the New Year, its appeals
being the universal support of
UK-based broadcasters and the
fact that it is based around established and popular standards.
For the BBC-hosted forum the
DPP invited observers, one of
which was ChilliBean Commercial
Director Peter Godden. Hoping to
win future business from companies that need to deliver large files
into broadcasters, Godden says:
“The event was more about acquisition than it was about workflow. I
was hoping there would be more
discussion about the delivery of finished programmes to broadcasters.
“It will have to be done over
broadband and the question is,
will all the production companies
and post houses want to invest in
broadband connections which are
running 24/7, 52 weeks a year?”
production house might want. So
what we need to evolve — and I
think we are the only people in a
position to do it — is a common
language so that people can understand together what it is they are
trying to achieve, and the basis on
which they can make compromises.
“There will always be compromises somewhere along the
chain, but at least there will soon
be a document that people can
point to. It might suggest, ‘To end
up in the optimum format for file
based delivery with this kind of
output, the broadcasters think it
best to do these kind of things’.”
Only SMPTE standards
chose to create AS-11 with a take
and match process involving MXF,
an AVC Intra codec and a defined
set of metadata. This option was so
much better than starting all over
again, and wasting precious time.
Kevin Burrows, CTO of
broadcast and distribution at C4,
blames the confusion in current
workflows on camera codecs,
something that comes with more
and more producers seeking
cheap rental deals that upset
DoPs and editors alike.
“We want to work back down
the chain just to get the continuity and the quality we want to
see,” insists Burrows.
Ian Wimsett, senior technologist with Red Bee Media,
explained the welcome involvement of the Advanced Media
Workflow Association (AMWA).
Red Bee Media’s Ian Wimsett:
“There is no deviation from MXF.
Only SMPTE standards are used”
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LET’S GO THERE.
INTRODUCING...
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3DTV market report 2012
Is the previous trajectory charted by high definition the most pertinent guide to an
emergence of 3D television as a mature product? Adrian Pennington investigates
The world’s first 3DTV channels
launched 15 months ago in a
blaze of publicity. Even now, new
3DTV commissions or 3D feature
releases receive attention which
belie the relatively limited nature
of the content market.
However with the number of
3D-ready displays sold in the UK
predicted to triple by the end of 2012
to 2.3 million, predicts Futuresource
Consulting — and with the number
of worldwide 3D channels, demo
channels or 3D VoD services expected to rise from 90 to around 110
in the next year — the market for
3DTV is only going one way.
The installed base and percentage of 3D-capable households will grow significantly over
the next three to five years, says
Futuresource market analyst
Fiona Hoy, so that by 2015 close
to half (47%) of US and UK
households will own a 3DTV.
However, as she points out,
many consumers purchase the 3D
function by default — a key reason behind the dramatic growth.
There are also hindrances to
market adoption, primarily poor
consumer education of the format
with many still struggling with the
concept of Blu-ray; as well as
negative publicity in relation to 3D
causing viewer headaches and
dizziness. “Consumers are also
holding back investment in 3D,
waiting for no-glasses technology
to emerge,” notes Hoy.
For many, the trajectory charted by HD remains the most pertinent guide. It took more than a
decade from introduction to
become a mature product so we
should not be impatient for
3DTV to reach those heights in
only its second year.
“There are reassuring parallels
between the stage we’re currently at
with 3D and our work in popularising high definition TV in the UK,”
says Sky 3D Channel Director, John
Cassy. “In 2006, Sky spearheaded
the market for HDTV, and the fruits
of that investment and innovation
are being felt across the broadcasting
landscape, to the extent that there
are now well over 50 HD channels
available on the Sky platform. I see
no reason why we can’t similarly help
drive the take-up of 3D in this country using a similar model.”
Cassy says subscribers to Sky
3D are in six figures “and growing
comfortably” while recognising
that the chief challenge is getting
households with 3DTV sets to
subscribe to Sky 3D.
The content gap, which at the
beginning of 2011 was considered
to be a major drawback to attracting customers to 3D services,
John Cassy: “The challenge for us
is making sure people are
switching their 3D function on and
enjoying 3D programming”
has narrowed says Cassy. “At
MIPCOM the increase in the
number of good ideas went up
significantly,” he says. “More and
more 3D programming is coming
through at increasingly high quality though some are sub-standard
due to technical challenges.
“In the early days of HD there
was a choice about whether to
buy an HDTV or not and today it
each other and developing innovative products that fill in the gaps in
the workflow to reduce costs.”
Making 3D work
3D production is being driven by
small and medium sized indies
like OSF, Leopard Films,
Renegade, Colonial Pictures and
Atlantic Productions. Larger producers with repeat or volume com-
“Everyone is trying to get empirical evidence
about what works for what type of audience.
Consequently the market changes every month,
with different feedback from broadcasters”
– Paul Berrow, Log Media
is difficult to buy one that is not
HD ready. The challenge for us is
making sure that people are
switching their 3D function on
and enjoying 3D programming.”
While Sky is continuing with its
mix of sports, movies and specials
like 3 x 60’ Kew 3D and feature length
The Bachelor King (both new from
Atlantic Productions) it is also taking
longer formats commissioned by
Discovery Networks. CAN Communicate’s co-production with Renegade
Pictures of the 10 x 60’ Safari Adventure [see feature story, page 18] for 3net is an example.
Across genre, costs can be double that 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,
COO at OnSight.
“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 says. “There’s no silver bullet
which will reduce the cost of making 3D. What is happening is that
manufacturers are now talking to
missions have yet to find a route
into 3D, although it could be
argued that Endemol-owned
Tigress Productions 60’ natural
history production Beautiful Freaks
breaks that mould.
For Electric Sky MD David
Pounds, producer of 10-part 3D
extreme sports series High
Octane, production is becoming
more affordable.
“New Sony and Panasonic 3D
camcorders are much more manageable than rigs — although rigs
are still necessary for certain projects,” he says. “The latest version of
Media Composer contains stereo
tools which makes 3D more readily
available in edit suites. Overall, 3D
tools are much more accessible.”
He predicts that the 3DTV market will remain largely static over
the next year, saying; “It is almost
impossible to fund 3DTV without
a 2D channel partner backing you
in some shape or form.”
With Discovery boosting its
European
3D
commissions
(though yet to launch a full 3D
channel on the Sky platform) the
UK market is dominated by
original 3D programming from
Sky. The BBC aired the live final
of Strictly Come Dancing in 3D
but it is occasional events like this
and BBC Earth feature productions Walking with Dinosaurs
3D and The Enchanted Kingdom —
as well as sports (an expanded 3D
coverage at Wimbledon 2012 is
planned) — which dominates the
broadcaster’s strategy.
BBC Worldwide’s Director of
content strategy Jo Sermon says
she is “exploring our top franchises,”
which may mean Doctor Who,
Antiques Roadshow or Top Gear.
“Our strategy is to look at three or
six part shows and make a one
hour 3D special from them. This
seems an interesting way of getting
the 3D element off the ground
and a business model that works.”
An hour-long version of the 6x30’
CGI series Planet Dinosaur from
Jellyfish Productions was the first
to go this route.
Paul Berrow, CEO of distributor Log Media, advises that internationally branded one-off event
programming is still the best option
while distribution remains limited.
OnSight COO Andrew Shelley:
“There’s no silver bullet that will
reduce the cost of making 3D”
“If you are not approaching the
3D market in that way then you are
going to be disappointed,” Berrow
says. “It is incredibly unpredictable
because you are starting from a
blank canvas which is being filled
in at random. The big players
(Discovery, Sky) are moving at an
entirely different pace from some
European territories that have only
just entered the fray. Everyone is
trying to get empirical evidence
about what works for what type of
audience. Consequently the market
changes every month with different
feedback from broadcasters.”
Most stakeholders maintain
that the 3D content will only fly
with user-friendly displays that
don’t require glasses. Tablets,
smartphones and portable games
consoles will be the first to
bring autostereoscopic screens to
mass market and could be a
“game-changer”, suggests Anthony
Geffen, creative director of Atlantic
Productions and Sky joint-venture
Colossus Productions.
“Our future 3D projects will
start to link content into those new
platforms,” he hints. “It will define
our business model going forward.”
Sky’s Cassy feels that autostereoscopic screens will be a major point
in the development of 3D. “There
are already a number of different
glasses-free tablets on the market
and we are watching them closely.
We have a partnership with
Nintendo 3DS where short clips
from Sky 3D are available to users
on their consoles. Our aim is to
showcase 3D and to encourage people to try it for real. We believe that
if consumers really want to engage
in 3D they need a proper size TV in
the comfort of their living room as
opposed to watching 3D on the go.”
“The market for 3DTV has
split between large-scale projects
shooting for example 4K for
IMAX distribution, and lower
budget approaches using cheaper
technology,” says Geffen. “It’s the
middle ground that’s really hard.”
He continues: “There is
absolutely a place for producers on
much lower budgets, cutting deals
on technology and experimenting
with cheaper technology. But people need to scale back a bit and put
the emphasis on why 3D illuminates a story better than 2D.”
Provided editorial concept and
technical execution are treated with
care, there is no reason not to consider stereo 3D production a moneymaking option. This agenda will be
pursued at TVBEurope’s upcoming
3D Masters 2012 conference at
BAFTA on 13 June — the essential
forum for the European TV industry as it experiments with cheaper
3D production technology; new
business opportunities; and the
marriage of the right content with
the appropriate stereoscopic storytelling techniques.
11
Chris Forrester reports on progress at the ambitious twofour54 project in Abu Dhabi
New report card for
Abu Dhabi media hub
Wayne Borg: “Abu Dhabi is being recognised as an ideas capital, and we want to increase that role”
TV Development
Twofour54’s Abu Dhabi studios
and media hub project is three
years old having launched on
October 2008, and now making
“very real progress,” says Wayne
Borg, COO at the operation. “We
wanted to encourage talent, of
course, and to get young people
excited about media and in
doing so overcoming certain local
taboos about working in television and its related services.”
Borg now has ample tangible
proof that the decision to invest in
talent creation is paying off. “The
promise we made is that we would
try to develop people, stories and
content for Arabs by Arabs, and
to incubate that creativity.”
Savvy operators have readily
bought into the concept. Two years
ago CNN established its fourth
global hub and news bureau within the tax-free trade zone campus,
and Sky News Arabia is busy
modifying the giant 650sqm
studio at one of twofour54’s ‘intaj/
production’ facilities as its new
Abu Dhabi home.
Arab broadcaster Rotana is
another regular user of the studio
facilities, as is Abu Dhabi Sports
and Al Jazeera Children’s Channel,
and helping boost current output
to some 3,400 hours of TV, films,
government and corporate work.
The ingest and playout facility is
now handling 11 channels.
When twofour54 launched it
had just 10 ‘partners’ including
some notable training names like
the BBC and Thomson Reuters.
That core has grown to 140 partners spread across media in the
widest sense. Cartoon Network
established its own 15-student
Animation Academy at the
campus, its first on the planet, and
is now turning out talented graduates, most of whom are finding
work within the sector.
Some 3,160 people have taken
one or other of the twofour54
technology courses, drawn from
19 countries. Indeed, such is the
demand that twofour54 have
bought the SAE Institute, a wellestablished training college in
nearby Dubai to tap into its skills
and experience drawn over the
past 25 years. The campus sees a
fresh intake of students this
month, almost all of whom are
paying real money in order to
acquire new skills.
“There’s a step-change taking
place here, where Abu Dhabi is
being recognised as an ideas
capital, and we want to increase
that role,” adds Borg. They have
won major contracts from Arab
broadcasting giant MBC, Oman,
Bahrain and other important
local players.
While names such as Avid, Sony,
Apple and Panasonic have each
played their part in the training
sessions, Phaedon Vass, who heads
up the unit, stresses this is much
more than “chalk and talk” teaching, with the emphasis very much
on developing practical ‘real world’
skills. “Some 95% of our training is
bespoke,” says Vass. A new course is
kicking off this month, looking at
developing business skills for the
film industry, while in the spring
another will look at writing and
story-telling techniques.
Twofour54 has installed a
dedicated 3D lab at the campus,
“There’s a step-change taking place here,
where Abu Dhabi is being recognised as an ideas
capital, and we want to increase that role”
and high-end colour-grading is
now possible just along a corridor
and past the latest editing and
post production suites for vision
and audio.
So much is going on at the campus that it is really tough to choose
from the numerous success stories.
For example, there’s games giant
UbiSoft, already with more than
Abu Dhabi education: A student at twofour54’s Animation Academy
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■ Attend hundreds of seminars across the show including:
Is 100Mb/s enough for broadcasters? Andy King, Head of Technology, Vision Productions, BBC
From MXF to a new universal file format Kevin Burrows, CTO Broadcast and Distribution, Channel 4, Ian Baker, MD Metaglue & Root6
Tapeless - is it worth the Trouble? Mark Harrison, Controller, BBC North
Fast & Furious: Tapeless Workflows at the Rugby World Cup Shane Warden, General Manager, Mediahouse at IMG Media
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12
8,000 staff employed around the
world, and seeking to hire more
than 100 people in Abu Dhabi over
the next three years in order to tap
into Arabs thirst for console, online
and smartphone game-playing.
There’s Jawaka, a card-gaming
website that employs 10 people,
and already has 600,000 users and
100,000 active monthly users.
Among the success stories on
campus is Twofour Arabia, headed
by Jonney Steven and a subsidiary
of the UK-based production
house, which has set up in Abu
Dhabi to develop Arabic-interest
projects. It has won an impressive
number of local projects, but
perhaps the most dramatic is a
film that will emerge from a 1,000mile expedition recreating the
journey of noted explorer Wilfred
Thesiger produced with Abu
Dhabi Media and with help from
the local cultural and heritage
ministry. Twofour Arabia is buying into the training campus
concept by establishing on-the-job
WWW.BVEXPO.COM
PRIORITY CODE
ETVBEJ
intern training for UAE youngsters, and taking them to the UK
for intense work experience.
Borg says that over the next
five-to-seven years they estimate
that about 9,000 media-related
positions will need to be filled
locally. And as part of that mix
they anticipate an abundance of
new talent will emerge. Typical
could be a new venture with
Viacom’s Comedy Central, where
a major new comedy sketch show
is already in development and
with talks at an advanced stage
with a major Arab broadcaster.
That show isn’t alone.
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well as other broadcasters around
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hard at work producing Series 2
with local illustrators and creatives at UAE production house
Blink Studios.
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now under development and targeting six-to-12-year-olds,” says Borg.
In other words twofour54, one
way or another, is busy building
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TVBE Jan P14-22 OB Focus_TVBE_SEPT_P21_37_sports 11/01/2012 14:00 Page 14
TVBEU R O PE O B F O C U S PA R T I I
Building a game plan
Panorama is fulfilling a commitment to cover the Winter Olympics and Paralympics in Sochi in three years time,
as well as the XXVII World Summer University Games in Kazan in 2013. Philip Stevens talks to the production
company involved and some of the key equipment suppliers about the order of 12 outside broadcast vehicles
Panorama Head of Production
Technology Sergey Podlesskii
says that a very detailed brief for
the supply of outside broadcast
vehicles was produced by the
technical team at Panorama,
together with experts from the
Russian TV industry including
three of the founders of the
organisation — Channel One,
VGTRK and NTV-PLUS.
“As a result of the tendering
process, our main contract for
OB vans was placed with ZAO,
a Russian office of Sony.
They have subcontracted Sony
Professional Solutions Europe
for 10- and 24-camera units and
Broadcast Solutions in Germany
for the 16-camera versions of
the trucks,” says Podlesskii.
“The order had to be split
because of its size, the very strict
delivery terms, financial conditions and responsibility.”
All of the 10-camera units
were scheduled to be delivered by
the end of 2011, while the bigger
capacity trucks will be commissioned throughout 2012.
As Malcolm Robinson, head
of Live Production Solutions at
Sony Professional states, this is an
extremely prestigious project for
Sony. “We are pleased to be working with Panorama and integrating a fleet of vehicles which will
set the standard for sports broadcasting in the CIS. We have been
engaging with Panorama since
November 2010 to design and
deliver the required technical
solutions, and this has involved
close co-operation with a number
of industry leading partners.”
Serving the replay needs
Camera control: Main cameras are mix of HDC-1500R and HDC-3300R, with HDCU-3300 and HDCU-1500 CCUs
some of the equipment installed
in the trucks, our team tried to
keep unified solutions for the
whole fleet,” declares Podlesskii.
“Wherever possible, we have
kept the same brands across all
the vehicles.”
Not surprisingly, Sony has provided a variety of equipment. This
includes cameras, which are a mix
of HDC-1500R and HDC-3300R
cameras, with their HDCU-3300
and HDCU-1500 CCUs, the latter
of which can operate on either
hybrid fibre or triaxial cable.
The flagship 24 camera trucks are
to be equipped with the latest
“Both ASGB and Broadcast Solutions have been
key partners to enable us to realise the customer’s
visions. The vehicles are all complex technical
installations and our design teams have worked
closely with Panorama to ensure operational
efficiency has been optimised” — Malcolm Robinson
He says that one of the major
areas has also been the consideration of the look and feel of the
vehicles. “Both coach builders
ASGB and Broadcast Solutions
have been key partners to enable
us to realise the customer’s visions.
The vehicles are all complex technical installations and our design
teams have worked closely with
Panorama to ensure operational
efficiency has been optimised.”
“Although there are minor
differences in terms of scale for
14
HDC-2500 3G cameras. VTRs
include HDCAM, PD-F1600
XDCAM VTRS, and various
monitors, including BVM-E170
Grade 1 colour monitors using the
latest OLED technology.
However, a variety of other
suppliers have contributed to this
huge project. For example, a
number of Panorama personnel
were already familiar with Snell
vision mixers, so that source was
asked to supply equipment for the
trucks built in the UK by Sony.
All 10-camera units were scheduled to be delivered by end 2011,
with bigger trucks commissioned throughout 2012
“The model that was selected
was the Kahuna 360,” explains
John Carter, Snell’s product
manager for switchers. “This
provides the ability to mix HD,
SD and even single link 1080p
sources in a single production
and then offer multiple outputs
of SD, HD and 1080p.”
Carter states that the 360
moves away from the traditional
concept of fixed M/Es, resources
and formats. “It provides far
more keying power – in fact, up to
seven sources on one mix/effect
bus. These are made up of four
super keyers and three linear or
luma sources which we call ekeys.
These ekeys are downstream of
the super keyers and have been
designed to bring even more
graphics to an M/E.”
He goes on to say that from an
operator’s perspective, the look of
the mixer is exactly the same as a
traditional layout — it is in the
electronics that the sources can be
configured to determine which
keys go on what M/E bank.
With the vision mixers coming
from Snell, it made sense to
purchase routers from the same
manufacturer. “Our Sirius series
routers are ideal for the restricted
space that is found in an OB environment,” maintains Alan Smith,
product manager for routers.
“For this project, it was decided
that the new 840 router was the
ideal model.”
The Sirius 840 consists of a
576x576 frame in a 26U format.
One key benefit is that no
other external splitters or combiners are required. In addition,
the frame includes redundant
power supplies, control cards
and crosspoints.
EVS equipment will be installed in
all trucks, delivered from both Sony
and Broadcast Solutions. The five
trucks that each accommodates 10
cameras are equipped with three
XT3 servers, one XHub3 and one
XF2 (removable storage systems).
The XT3 is used for all stages from
ingest to playout — including live
editing, slow-motion replays, multichannel playback and transfer to
third-party systems.
XHub3 is a high-bandwidth
media sharing network that
allows multiple production and
playout servers to be interconnected through a central hub
offering a bandwidth of up to
1.5Gbps. The XF2 server incorporates two removable hard disk
drives, and is employed where
archiving and backup for storing
clips, media, live feeds or any
other video content is needed.
The seven vehicles that operate
either 16 or 24 cameras have been
supplied with greater numbers of
the same equipment and systems,
together with EVS’ IPDirector.
Running on a Windows-based
workstation, the IPDirector Suite
allows ingest control, metadata
management, editing and playout
scheduling all to be managed from
a single interface.
These larger capacity trucks
will also be equipped with Final
Cut Pro systems that allow
media interoperability between
the EVS units and the editing
system. This is accomplished
using EVS import/export plugin
tools IP-Link (a browsing
IPDirector plugin tool) and
V-Drive (the EVS virtual file
system allowing users to access
XT3 clips from FCP interface).
In addition, the 24 camera
trucks are expected to be equipped
with Xedio dispatcher for ENG
file reviewing, rough cut editing
and import on to XT3 servers.
The configuration will also include
XedioCleanEdit (EVS’ NLE
package) with IPLink plugin for
file import on the timeline.
Following detailed testing and
evaluation Oxygen DCT’s Penta
series of monitors where chosen
for the trucks. All monitors in the
main gallery, production, and
sound areas are equipped with 3G
inputs and 10-bit LCD panels
giving up 1.07 billion radiant
colours — allowing production
crew to monitor more effectively and
in greater detail. The monitoring is
Continued on page 16
Live production
shouldn’t be
a lottery
Europe’s largest broadcasters and
production companies choose Sony to
deliver in a high pressure environment.
With over 100 HD OB vehicles supplied
across Europe, the Middle East and
Africa, Sony Professional is the partner
of choice. Our experienced team has
delivered everything from Europe’s first
HD and 3D OB trucks, to SNG vans and
24-camera trailers. What can we build
for you?
Follow Europe’s leading broadcasters
and work with Sony for the ultimate in live
production broadcasting.
www.pro.sony.eu/outsidebroadcast
Continued from page 14
compliant to EBU REC709
colour standards and upon installation each monitor underwent
an additional in-situ recalibration
to ensure identical colour preproduction on all sizes of monitors
and in each area.
Netherlands-based
Axon
Digital Design has supplied the
trucks with Synapse modular processing equipment. These processors will be used for a range of
applications, including the upconversion, down-conversion and
cross conversion of 3G signals.
The modules will support the
distribution of video and audio
signals throughout the vehicles
as well as the embedding and
de-embedding of audio signals.
“Beyond the Games, one of the aims of our
company is to contribute to the development of
the production industry all over our big country”
— Sergey Podlesskii
Synapse’s internal bus structure
reduces the need for external
cabling and further easing the
technical demands on each vehicle.
In addition, Axon’s miniaturised technology will control
the synchronising, legalising and
keying operations within the fleet.
Your link to 3G
Finally, Axon’s SynView will
form the standard multi-viewing
platform on the vehicles.
“Included in the list of equipment is our new GDL200 unit,”
reports Jean-Pierre Nouws,
senior product manager at Axon.
“This was made especially for this
contract. It is a dual standard
legaliser for digital signals with
full frame sync capabilities.”
He continues, “The multi–
viewer has been enhanced upon
request of Panorama with 4:3
masking capabilities.”
Audio mixing has been
entrusted to Studer Vista 9 and
Yamaha DM1000VCM with
MY16-AE AES/EBU interface
cards alongside high specification
video and monitoring equipment.
Communication equipment for
the trucks has come from Riedel
and includes a combination of
Artist, MediorNet, Partyline and
RockNet units.
The training task
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As mentioned earlier, training is
one of the key points of the project, and Panorama felt there was
a need to educate around 1,500
professionals from nine Russian
regions in preparation for Sochi.
“Together with our main contractors, vendors who provide
equipment for us, and leading
Russian high-schools, Panorama
has developed a special training
programme,” explains Podlesskii.
“The first phase of training started
in May this year — even before our
first OB vans were built.
“With the help of our suppliers,
we organised a special classroom
in the form of an OB-van simulator, where both technical and production specialists were trained.
Now we are already running a
second phase — on our own first
10-camera OB vans. Each group
of students is getting both theoretical and practical classes. Test
productions are performed in all
different kinds of sports.”
Podlesskii
admits
that
Panorama has a very tough task to
build a huge infrastructure within a
very short time. But he believes that
high professionalism and motivation of the core team, along with
practical support from the state
and technical partners make the
fulfilment of the task very realistic.
He concludes, “Beyond the
Games, one of the aims of our
company is to contribute to the
development of the production
industry all over our big country.
We hope that all OB-vans operated by local teams, which are now
being trained in Moscow, will continue working on future sports and
cultural events in Russia and possibly outside of the country.”
www.panoramahd.ru
www.sony.co.uk
www.broadcast-solutions.de
www.oxygendct.com
www.snellgroup.com
www.evs.tv
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www.axon.tv
www.studer.ch
OTO-TVBE Page Template
26/7/11
15:59
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Adventurous 3D in series mode
When shooting in Africa or a big
production with Sir David
Attenborough is out of the question,
the answer is to find a controlled
location where you can seek
significant economies of scale.
Adrian Pennington reports on the
3D production learning curve behind
the new Safari Adventure series
One sign that 3D production is
maturing to include not only
single event flagship shows like
Flying Monsters 3D but also
budget documentary series, is
the 10 x 60’ Safari Adventure.
The observational documentary
filmed over 16 weeks at Woburn
Safari Park features day-to-day
stories of wildlife including rhino,
lions and giraffes and their keepers, and was shot using techniques
learned on live 3D sports.
Co-produced by Renegade
Pictures and CAN Communicate
and commissioned by Dan Korn,
senior VP, Programming at Discovery Networks UK (for 3net
in the US as well as transmission
on Sky 3D on 4 February), its
Directors were Natalie Wilkinson
and Livia Simok.
Renegade co-founder Alan
Hayling explains the project’s
genesis; “Discovery came to us
because of our previous 3D experience and asked us what we could
do at relatively low cost. There are
companies like Atlantic Productions focussed on the very
high end but we looked at whether
the high volume, lower cost, but
still high quality 3D model, could
work. In discussion with CAN we
concluded that we could control
cost — and control the 3D — if
we shot in a single location, so
long as that location had a lot of
story going on.
“Shooting in Africa or a big
production with Sir David
Attenborough was out of the question, so the answer was to find a
controlled location where we could
get significant economies of scale.
If you can do a large volume then
you can make really significant
savings and not make 3D too much
of an extra cost.”
Hayling said the cost premium
was around 25% that of a comparative 2D HD shoot, a cost
incurred partly on kit but also on
“additional crew to move the
heavy rig around, a stereographer
and rig technician.”
The main unit was a pair of Sony
P1s with Canon HJ22 lenses mounted on a 3Ality Technica Pulsar. The
cameras were worked through an
MPE-200 for alignment, which was
powered from a small, and crucially
silent, generator.
“Shooting wildlife means you
can’t predict where your subject
will be or what they will do next,
so ideally you need the ability to
reframe and zoom and converge
in camera,” says David Wooster, a
18
director of CAN Communicate.
“Working the zooms through the
MPE-200 allowed us to shoot in a
documentary wildlife style and
give us extra flexibility in reframing and changing shots.”
CAN was able to draw on
operators with experience of
pulling convergence live at sports
events such as Wimbledon. “We
had everyone from rig technician
to DIT learn convergence pulling,
stereography, the role of the DIT,
and how to build a rig so that after
a couple of weeks shooting everyone’s role was interchangeable,”
says Wooster. “Even though John
Perry was the primary stereographer in terms of the overall plan
we didn’t want to be stuck having
one person as doing DIT or rig
work, but to keep it all fresh.”
The Sky 3D spec
The project was originally conceived in 3D alone, but an identical 2D
cut was versioned for Discovery after executives liked what they saw
Woburn’s animals may not be as
wild as those in the Serengeti or as
unfamiliar with humans gawping
at them, but as Wooster sagely
observes: “You can’t just rock up
to lions.” Since the rig and MPE
required a 240v power source, the
team found a quieter gas-powered
hydrogen cel generator and
installed it along with MPE and
monitors in a converted army
truck (owned by Woburn Safari
requires HD quality imagery
recorded at a minimum 50Mbps.
According to Wooster, “We
looked at various 3D handheld
options but none would allow us
to get as close as we needed to the
subject. We knew that we’d be
filming vets and keepers in confined spaces where we’d have to be
3-4ft from the nearest point of
anything in the frame.”
“There’s starting to be an evolution of 3D technology
in the marketplace which is making documentary-style
3D filming more and more feasible” – David Wooster
Park), with a lion-proof cage cut
with a hole to fit the mirror box.
A second unit camera system
was also needed for handheld and
close-up work. Explains stereographer John Perry; “We needed
to have a handheld solution we
could set up and use really quickly,
to grab and go. It needed to be
portable. We researched the market for ages but nothing satisfied
Sky’s specifications.”
Although the series was shot
for Discovery, the producers
worked to the Sky 3D spec which
Perry took the lead in housing a
pair of 2/3-inch sensor Cunima cameras side-by-side on an aluminium
mount for handheld operation.
“In terms of IO you can put
them right next to each other,” says
Wooster. “There’s no zoom but it
allowed us to get close to the subject. The first version was like a
spider’s web of cables. The lenses
themselves only really functioned
100% perfectly the day before
shooting started. But from then on
it worked extremely well and gave
us the versatility we needed.”
Production notes: The main unit was a pair of Sony P1s with
Canon HJ22 lenses mounted on a 3Ality Technica Pulsar
In reality the crew used the unit
shoulder-mounted with two cameraops trained to “operate it as if
their whole body were a human
steadicam,” says Wooster. “They
needed a fluid and slower movement. A lot of people grab a 3D
camcorder and just shoot as if it
were 2D, forgetting the limitations
as to how close they are to the subject. If you get too close to something then the object can be
pushed too far out of the screen
and be unfixable in post. You have
to have cameramen trained to
shoot 3D handheld in a disciplined
way. You need to be incredibly conscious of framing and movement.”
Gathering angles
The Cunima’s were recorded at
140Mbps to a pair of Nano flash
recorders with the P1’s recorded
at 100Mbps. “After some early
teething problems to find acceptable camera angles in this configuration the results proved fantastic,”
concurs Duncan Humphreys, CAN
Communicate creative director.
One of the issues with shooting wildlife is that it is easier to
shoot them from far away and to
close the distance using longer
lenses. In 3D that can collapse the
depth and render the 3D effect as
a cardboard cutout.
“We aimed to get as close up as
often as possible,” says Perry.
“When we used a long lens we
tried to increase the separation
(IO) between the cameras as much
as we could to retain some shape
and volume.”
For Perry, trying to get sufficient coverage was the biggest challenge. “Working with animals you
would normally shoot handheld or
with fairly long focal length, with a
camera on a tripod that you can
easily pick up and move and
reframe to get lots of angles for the
editor to build the story in the edit.
“With such a heavy, cumbersome 3D rig it was taking us much
longer to move to a different position so we were limited in the
shots we could give an editor. We
planned on getting wider shots
and holding them longer to make
two minute sequences from fewer,
longer shots.”
This can work in 3D because
the audience needs fewer cuts to
understand the story. “For the
first couple of months we were
worried whether we were gathering enough angles to tell the story
but the crew got really slick at not
carrying and setting up the rig and
lenses. So as we went on were able
to pick up more and more shots.”
The production generated 250
hours of rushes, around three hours
a day at a ratio of 25:1, similar to
the schedule of a 2D documentary.
“We had to think very carefully
about how we shot and recorded so
that we didn’t end up having to
store 200-300TBs,” says Wooster.
Media was logged onsite combined with DIT references to any
issues with shots and LTO backed
up, a copy for each eye, at the same
time. A set of 3D Go Pros were also
used for various dramatic shots.
Editing was performed in 2D
on Avid with finishing on a pair
of Pablos linked to a Quantel
Genetic SAN. The project was
originally conceived in 3D alone,
but an identical 2D cut was versioned for Discovery after its executives liked what they saw.
3D evolution
The stereography was designed to
be an immersive into-the-screen
experience with occasional out of
screen moments so long as they fitted naturally to the story. These
included a flock of birds, a giraffe’s
head coming down to eat and a
rhino’s horn turned to camera.
Since each of the 10 programmes was constructed from
rushes which could have been shot
on Day one or Day 120, all of the
material needed to be held online.
“The most challenging part of
the project is that we could have
done with more time in post
because we are working 24 hours a
day to finish the show — which is
fine but not an ideal scenario,” says
Wooster. “The biggest thing from
when we started the show to where
we are now is that there’s starting to
be an evolution of 3D technology
in the marketplace which is making
documentary-style 3D filming
more and more feasible.”
Innovations, he said, include
Sony’s shoulder-mounted camcorder and a number of recording
options from One Beyond and
Cineform to AJA cards. One
development that may assist
future similar productions, said
Humphreys, is a ruggedised, location battery-powered MPE with
built-in recorder.
www.cancommunicate.com
www.renegadepictures.co.uk
OTO/TVBE Page Template
7/6/11
17:01
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Ice work at the North Pole
The BBC’s latest natural history series has won worldwide acclaim.
Philip Stevens discovers some of the technical aspects to its success
First, just a few fascinating facts:
the series was four years in production, the crew spent 2,356
days in the field, 1.5 years at sea,
over six months on the sea ice and
134 hours filming under the ice.
The result has been a spectacular
set of programmes produced by
the BBC under the series title of
Frozen Planet.
The series gives a portrait of
the four seasons at, what is generally considered, the last great
wilderness on earth, the Polar
Regions. Covering both animal
life and vegetation, the production team used a mixture of
shooting techniques to portray
the Arctic and Antarctic as they
have never been seen before — and,
indeed, may never be seen again.
Renowned naturalist and
broadcaster Sir David Attenborough, who himself travelled to
both Polar Regions in the making
of the series, provided the voice
over for the series.
“Obviously, one of the problems with making such programmes is the distances involved,”
says Mark Linfield, one of the
BBC’s producers on the series.
“For example, because of the
logistics and expense it is simply
impractical to carry out reconnaissance trips in the way that
we usually do. As a result, we
have to draw upon the extremely
helpful knowledge of those who
have visited the regions. In
addition, there is a group of
polar experts who provide
invaluable advice.”
The other understandable area
of potential difficulties is the
weather. In order to predict what
might happen to cameras and
other pieces of equipment, the
assistance of a huge cold store
near Bristol was sought. “We
took the kit into an area that normally holds items such as frozen
baguettes and beef burgers,”
reveals Linfield.
“Although it is hard to predict
exactly what we would encounter
in the Polar Regions, this exercise
allowed us to see the type of
problems we might potentially
face. At low temperatures, moving parts can freeze and cables
can become so stiff they snap.
Following the tests, we were able
to winterise the equipment. Some
of the modifications included
mini-heaters on servos on the
motion control units and special
‘arctic cabling’ that would stay
flexible in the cold.”
Linfield reports that these
preparations meant there were
surprisingly few weather-related
problems on location.
20
Some of the crew with Sir David Attenborough at the North Pole
unit. In this way and using
motion control, we created a
moving sequence that showed the
seasonal changes from the same
location at different times of the
year. Once the first set of passes
was finished, we deployed metal
markers to record the exact position of the tripod. When we came
back at the next season, we used
GPS to give us the rough location
of the markers, then a metal
detector to get us even closer,
finally we sank the tripod into the
original metal markers.”
During the intervening period,
the permafrost could have
moved slightly, or snow may have
appeared on the scene, so there was
always a possibility that the next
sequence might not match exactly
the previous filming. However,
care in setting the positioning of
the equipment meant any mismatches would be minimal.
“35mm film was the only medium that allowed us to
accomplish long exposure time lapse, realtime and
high speed shooting in a single unit…. for seasonal
changes from a single position” — Mark Linfield
“One of the benefits of using
film is that the resolution allows
us to re-align the shots to provide
us with a perfect match,”
declares Linfield. “The result is a
memorable panning sequence
that shows the four seasons
merging into each other without
any jumps in the movement. I do
not believe we could have
achieved that incredible effect
with HD tape.”
Cineflex gyro-stabilised camera fitted to crane and
mounted on a boat in the Bering Sea, to stabilise shots
The team filmed the first proper exploration of the ice caves of
Mount Erebus. Laser is used to measure the dimensions of the cave
A mixture of tape, hard drive,
digital SLR, 35mm and Super
16mm film cameras were
employed for the shoots. “It’s a
case of using the best technique
for individual circumstances,”
says Linfield. “For instance, for
static time lapse we found the
digital stills camera gave us the
best results. The underwater
sequences involved a variety of
Sony cameras and Panasonic
VariCams were used for most
behavioural shooting on land.”
One spectacular time lapse
sequence involved a panning shot
across a specific polar landscape
at the various seasons of the year.
To achieve the best results, the
team decided to use 35mm film.
“This was the only medium that
allowed us to accomplish long
exposure time lapse, realtime and
high speed shooting in a single
arm for the camera mounts and
the robotic controls, we were
able to pick up all the close ups
we needed.”
In fact, the pioneering use of
the aerial camera, this time
mounted on to the yacht, plus
a second stabilised camera
and a polecam enabled the
crew to capture multiple angles
of killer whales attacking seals
in Antarctica.
Similarly, by mounting a stabilised camera on a trawler, the
team recorded some spectacular
views of the melting ice world of
the Arctic in summer. During this
particular exercise, there was a
close encounter with a hunting
female polar bear, which came
within 15ft of them.
Once the filming was completed, all the material was brought
back to the BBC’s Natural
History Unit at Bristol, where
editing was carried out on Final
Cut Pro 7. “We have been very
pleased with the result. There’s a
great deal of hard work and commitment, but it is truly worth it,”
concludes Linfield.
Stable images
Arial sequences were shot on
Sony 1500 hard disk cameras
mounted in 5-axis gyro-stabilisation units manufactured by
Cineflex. This company also provided the robotics for controlling
the cameras. Helicopter shots
were especially useful in obtaining images of animals that might
have been scared off by the close
proximity of a production crew.
Having a stabilised mount also
enabled the helicopter to remain
some distance from the animals
— again to prevent them from
becoming frightened.
The same camera rigs were
mounted on motorised dinghies
used to capture close ups of polar
bears and other animals.
“In summer, the sea ice is
continually breaking up and
moving
around,”
explains
Linfield. “Standing on the ice is,
therefore, a risky business. The
only way to get close ups of
some of these animals is from
a boat. However, boats are
notoriously unsteady, so the
stabilisation units are essential
in obtaining good, useable
shots. By using a counterbalanced
And a great many others seem
to share Linfield’s delight. Alongside being shown on the BBC in
the UK, the programmes have
now been sold to international
broadcasters in Australia, Japan,
Belgium, Finland, South Africa,
New Zealand, Netherlands, Italy,
Denmark, Norway, Russia and
Sweden. A book and DVD of the
series has recently been published.
www.bbc.co.uk
www.panasonic.com
www.sony.co.uk
www.cineflexv14hd.com
Frozen in time
Some more fascinating facts
about the making of Frozen
Planet. The series involved:
G 38 sled dogs
G 33 skidoos
G 28 helicopters
G 22 boats
G 12 reindeer
G 10 quad bikes
G 8 sets of snow shoes
G 5 amphibious vehicles
G 2 powerful icebreakers —
one in the North, the other in
the South
G 1 Royal Naval ice patrol
vessel — HMS Endurance
G 2,118 dehydrated meals eaten
G 35 days trapped in tents
by blizzards
G 425 days at temperatures
below minus 15°C
G 598 pairs of thermals
G 38 cameramen
G Very low temperatures —
minus 50°C within the ice at
the South Pole
THE LENS
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It has the widest angle in its class
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It’s an innovation that could only come from the
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www.canon-europe.com/tv-products
NEWS
IN BRIEF
Arqiva news
for France 24
Arqiva has won the contract to
distribute the France 24 news channel in
the UK. The five year contract sees
Arqiva providing multiplexing, uplinking
and satellite services that deliver the
channel’s English language feed to the
BSkyB and Freesat platforms as well as
to an extensive network of hotels.
Arqiva uses its facilities in France and its
global terrestrial fibre network to bring
the channel’s feeds to the UK. The
English language feed is then uplinked
onto Arqiva’s Eurobird 1 satellite
capacity through one of its international
teleports. Exclusive delivery of the
service began on 1 November. David
Couret from France 24 said, “France 24
broadcasts extensive live prime-time
content so it is crucial that our
broadcast chain is as robust and reliable
as possible. Arqiva is widely recognised
as the UK broadcast specialist so we are
pleased to be able to utilise their
expertise in distributing our content into
this essential market.”
www.arqiva.com
Boss manages BR
The Head-End Management System of
Dimetis, Boss Broadcast Manager, will
shortly go in to production at the
location Ismaning in the new DVB-T
Multiplex-Centre of Bayerischer
Rundfunk. Signal processing is
completely covered by the MultiplexCentre, from the encoding of videoand audio signals to the statistic
multiplex, which creates distributable
transport streams. The addition of
service information is part of the
complete solution as well as the SFN
(Single-Frequency Network) adaption
of streams. The concept consists of
three DVB-T multiplexers for an
efficient playout of 12 programmes.
Planning, installation and deployment
of the heterogeneous hardware
components, as well as the integration
of Boss Broadcast Manager for the
control and the fault management in
the multiplex centre, was coordinated
and performed by the German software
company Dimetis. Further, the
integration of a multiviewer solution
for monitoring on content level and
DVB standards was realised by the
Dimetis Boss Stream Viewer.
www.dimetis.de
Direct ENPS video
Synaptic Digital and ENPS, a division of
The Associated Press, announced
that video content from Synaptic
Digital’s global distribution portal,
thenewsmarket.com, can now be sent
directly to ENPS customers for use in
highly integrated MOS-based production
workflows and eco-systems. By feeding
content directly into ENPS-enabled
newsrooms, content providers using
thenewsmarket.com are now able to
make their content directly accessible on
the ENPS desktops used by journalists
and editors in subscribing newsrooms.
www.synapticdigital.com
www.enps.com
22
Reality for multi-link
cellular video uplinking
Guest Opinion
By Baruch Altman, director, LiveU
The world of technology never
stands still for long: no sooner
have the benefits of using cellularbonded backpacks over 3G been
recognised by broadcasters than
4G begins to be rolled out. New
4G LTE networks, we are told,
offer considerable bandwidth
benefits allowing consumers,
especially smartphone users, to
take advantage of surfing and
downloading content.
Does the same apply for HD
(1080, 720), or even SD, live video
transmission from the field for
broadcast or online use? Well, yes
and no.
For the 3GPP 4G LTE (not
LTE-Advanced which is still
some way from realisation), with
all the variations in operators, territories, spectrum, infrastructure
and modems, significantly higher
total bandwidth is certainly possible with LTE both in the downlink and the uplink. Lower uplink
latency is also achieved.
But notes of caution must be
sounded. The fundamental factors
that affect 3G networks and have an
impact on uplink video transmission affect 4G — or any cellular network for that matter. Regardless of
the exact bandwidth demand versus
availability, many of these factors
touch on the basic requirement
from live broadcasting: resiliency,
stability, anywhere, anytime.
Firstly, the topology: the number of base stations and antennae
deployed and their locations — up
high with great line of sight or
around the corner in a high-rise
urban area where signal quality can
be compromised. Then, as with 3G,
multipath interference and fading
is an issue with 4G, for example in
built-up areas. Of course the distance from the tower remains very
important in limiting the momentary performance of a 4G device,
even more so in the uplink.
Bandwidth drop
Secondly, the frequency being used
has a very real effect on performance. In much of Europe, for
example, 2.6GHz is allocated for LTE
whereas 3G uses 2.1GHz. That’s a
big enough difference in indoor
penetration to cultivate a whole
new technology called Femtocells,
designed specifically to address
problems related to indoor coverage.
Thirdly, since the maximum
bandwidth is higher for 4G LTE,
so is the bandwidth amplitude.
This means that in case of RF
interference or other cause of
change — for example, a truck
passing between the user and the
tower or more subscribers sharing
the capacity — a significant sudden
bandwidth drop and/or latency
increase may occur. In other
words, if a user is uplinking live at
2Mbps, and there’s a sudden
momentary uplink drop to 200kbps,
that broadcast is in trouble.
Another factor is the backhaul
from the base transceiver station
to the backbone, mainly fibre or
microwave. To realise the potential
LTE bandwidth increase, opera-
Live TX: what’s required is as high sustained
‘goodput’ with as low sustained latency as possible
video will be delivered, regardless
or not of whether there’s 4G network coverage.
Lower latency
Initially, of course, there are very
few users on any new LTE network but sharing the uplink
capacity applies as much as it did
previously. Even before an
In other words, if a user is uplinking live at
2Mbps, and there’s a sudden momentary uplink
drop to 200kbps, that broadcast is in trouble
tors need to invest in strengthening
the backhaul and that seems to be
happening in stages. What appears
to be the case is that for any given
backhaul capacity, operators tend
to increase more the downlink
capacity because that’s where most
subscribers’ usage lies.
LTE coverage is currently very
limited compared to 3G. Whereas
3G reach has grown significantly
beyond city centres, LTE deployment is only beginning in city centres while suburban, let alone rural
areas, will see much later deployment due to ROI issues, except if
forced by regulation. Still, broadcasters need the peace of mind to
be assured that broadcast-quality
increase in users and a rise in
bandwidth demand, 600Kbps
and lower sustained uplink
speeds had been observed for
entirely understandable reasons,
representing a difference between
theoretical, maximum, average or
published speeds and what’s practically achieved in the field.
None of this is to underestimate the value of 4G LTE: if
everything’s optimal then users
will get lower latency and more
bandwidth. However, based on
the above factors, single modem
LTE is simply not sufficient
for resilient high-quality uplink
video transmission from anywhere,
at any time.
TVUPack powers live cycling
By David Stewart
WTS Broadcast has supplied independent broadcaster IQRA TV
with the TVUPack, a 3G/4G wireless mobile uplink solution from
TVU Networks. The broadcaster
purchased the two TVUPack transmitters to broadcast live on-site
coverage of the John O’Groats to
Lands End bike-ride, UK-wide
cycling action which was broadcast
throughout the UK and Europe
on IQRA TV’s Sky channel and
internet stream.
The cycle run, ‘Ride To Help’, a
charity to raise funds to provide
shelter and food for the victims of
natural disasters worldwide, lasted
32 days with seven-to-eight hours of
telecast per day. IQRA purchased
the TVUPack as an alternative to
hiring a DSNG van, which posed
both cost and availability issues for
the channel at the time. TVUPack
provided a cost-effective option,
while allowing for transmission over
3G networks while in motion. This
meant that camera operators could
follow cyclists for longer stints than
would be possible with a DSNG van.
“We were aware of 3G transmission technology as a cost-effective
alternative to DSNG van hire, and
For video transmission it’s not
peak or indeed average speeds that
we’re interested in. While surfing the
web a sudden drop may go unnoticed, but for video it’s very different:
what’s required is as high sustained
‘goodput’ (throughput that’s received
okay) with as low sustained latency
as possible. With inherent cellular
behaviour, increased network loading
and the other factors, performance
fluctuations are inevitable.
Multi-link solutions that use 4G
LTE and other available networks,
allow broadcasters and online
video professionals to enjoy the
benefits of both the 4G and 3G
worlds. While harnessing the extra
bandwidth and shorter delay provided by the LTE network, bonded
solutions overcome LTE difficulties
with 4G/3G technology switching.
A properly-designed LTE-bonding
system automatically switches a
greater percentage of the transmitted video bandwidth over to the 3G
networks in relevant areas without,
for example, succumbing to broadcast breakdowns because of relying
too much on any single LTE link.
Indeed for many years to come,
multi-link backpacks and handheld uplink devices that simultaneously bond 3G and 4G technology will see the best results.
decided to invest in the TVUPack
because we knew we would need it
for ongoing coverage of a variety of
different events — we didn’t want to
take our chances with DSNG,” said
Shahriar Habib, IQRA’s head of
Studio. “The TVUPack was the
only product on the market that met
our requirements. We needed to be
able to send a live feed to London
while on the move, and it also needed to be compact, easy to assemble
and use. For the most part it was a
good low-cost alternative to DSNG.”
www.wtsbroadcast.com
RAI Amsterdam
Conference 6-11 September : Exhibition 7-11 September
3XW<RXU&RPSDQ\
RQWKH*OREDO
7HFKQRORJ\0DS
Submit a Technical Paper or Poster for the IBC2012
Conference – the place to unveil the latest in engineering
innovation and technological thinking.
The Technical Papers and Posters Sessions at IBC are world-renowned for their up-to-the-minute
reports and presentations. Allowing industry experts and influential professionals to explore and
debate the latest developments and cutting-edge thinking in electronic media, broadcasting and
entertainment technologies and their applications.
The IBC Technical Papers and Posters are an excellent opportunity to put your technology,
strategic thoughts and company on the global technology map – and help contribute to a
successful 2012 Conference.
Successful authors will have the opportunity to present their Paper or Poster to IBC2012
Conference Delegates. The winner will receive the prestigious IBC2012 Best Conference Paper
Award that is presented at the IBC Awards Ceremony in September.
To find out more information about the IBC Technical
Papers and Posters and how to submit your synopsis
by Friday 10 February 2012, visit:
www.ibc.org/callforpapers
Previous Winners Include:
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IBC Fifth Floor International Press Centre 76 Shoe Lane London EC4A 3JB UK
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www.ibc.org
At the heart of
communications
Digital technology has pushed its
analogue counterpart on to the
sidelines in most areas of sports
broadcasting but commentary is one
vital element for which this has not
happened completely. Today the two
audio formats appear to have settled
into a co-existence, giving operators
the choice of what best suits their
needs, writes Kevin Hilton
Choices exist among the three types
of common commentary system
configuration: ISDN, POTS/PSTN
(plain old telephone service/public
switched telephone network) or IP
codecs for single reporter use;
stand-alone units, which have more
features but are still run on site by
the commentary team; and more
sophisticated systems, with control
and processing sections the responsibility of an engineer.
Among codec mixers used
for sports commentary are the
AEQ Phoenix Mobile, Glensound
Electronics GS-GC units and
the Mayah Communications
range. The Sporty PSTN, ISDN,
WLAN, UMTS/3G mobile codec
is used mainly by small European commercial radio stations
but Mayah spokesman Daniel
Adasinskiy said the company was
due to launch specific features to
make the unit more suitable for
TV sports commentary.
The next step up from the mixer
codec is the stand-alone commentary system. At its most basic this
has inputs for two microphones
and outputs for two headphones,
one each for the commentator and
the former player or out-of-work
manager providing the ‘expert’
analysis; more recent models have
positions for two or three commentators and one guest.
OB operator SIS LIVE works
with the BBC and other broadcasters on sports and entertainment coverage. Vision Engineer
Neville Orton comments that for
typical sports events, such as football matches, where one or two
positions are required, analogue
stand-alone commentary units
such as the Prospect Electronics
CMU21 or Glensound GS-CU001
are used. “These have outputs and
inputs on standard XLRs to the
OB truck using standard multiquad cable, which is used across
our fleet and within the industry,”
he explains.
Also in the standalone bracket
are the Sonifex CM-CU21, an analogue desk with two commentator
positions and one for a pundit, and
the DC2012, manufactured by OB
equipment specialist CTP Systems.
Succeeding the DC99-II, the two
position DC2012 is analogue but has
digital control. Managing Director
Chris Thorpe says the OB companies
he supplies, which include Visions,
want something “that will work
wherever”. A wholly analogue single
commentator unit, as yet unnamed,
is due for launch this month.
Digital age
Completely digital commentary systems caused consternation when
they first appeared during the early
2000s. The concern was that they
would be too unreliable and complicated to use. Spanish manufacturer AEQ persevered and its
DCS-10 is now the preferred commentators’ system for
the Olympic Games.
AEQ is now
promoting a successor to the DCS10, known within
the company as the
NCS. Both systems
have three mic and
three headphone
connections, with
an additional mic/
line input for a
guest. Each is conMayah Sporty is Mayah’s codec commentary system nected to a central
control unit; in the case of the
NCS this is a standard AEQ
BC-2000 router.
In 2008 Glensound launched
its own digital system, the GDC6432. Like the DCS-10 system,
this comprises a commentator’s
desk and a control unit, which is
run by an engineer either in the
commentary box or an OB truck,
linked digitally over coax, copper
or fibre Ethernet.
Gustavo Robles, director of
international sales at AEQ, says
digital commentary systems are
now commonplace but that cost is
still a deciding factor: “All is in
relation to the size of event and the
budget available. Analogue does
still have a place since it is easy to
deploy and operate. However, at
larger events, the digital domain is
becoming more important.”
Korean Broadcasting Systems (KBS)
selected Lynx Technik modular
solutions to boost its coverage of the
2011 IAAF World Championship in
Daegu, Korea. Broadcast Solutions
managed the project as systems
integrator and general contractor
24
alongside its local partner, Dong
Yang Digital Co in Seoul.
To meet the growing demand
for HD entertainment and sports
programming, Broadcast Solutions was brought on board to aid
KBS with the design and development of the new 16-camera high
GS-OC24 commentators’ units and
GS-OC23 base stations in operation. Senior Technical Advisor
Matti Helkamaa comments that
YLE’s stand-alone systems are now
shifting from ISDN to IP with a full
Riedel set-up, connecting either
DSC-16 panels with modified mic
preamps or CCP-1116 commentary
units to the German manufacturer’s
intercom systems.
“The old analogue commentary
units at YLE will be in production
according to their remaining lifespan
“Analogue does still have a place since it is easy
to deploy and operate. However, at larger
events, the digital domain is becoming more
important” — Gustavo Robles, AEQ
A recent outing for the
Glensound GDC-6432 was the
Rugby World Cup in New Zealand.
Gearhouse Broadcast provided 37
GDC-6432s to facilities operation
OSB NZ, which provided facilities
to host broadcaster Sky NZ.
SIS Live Sound Supervisor Andy
James comments that large-scale
events such as the Olympic and
Commonwealth Games are now
more likely to feature digital commentary systems because of the
need for central control and scalability. “Digital enables us to increase or
decrease the number of commentary
systems offered to the client broadcasters without re-designing the system,” he says. “The digital systems
also integrate more easily with a
fibre infrastructure than analogue
kit does and this enables us to reduce
cable and rigging time and pass on
savings to the customer.”
Digital matrix
Finnish public broadcaster YLE
is beginning to move to digital,
although it still has Glensound
Lynx modules reign for KBS
By David Stewart
Glensound digital GDC-6432 at the Rugby World Cup last year
definition OB van. The new truck
has been partitioned into four production rooms — video, audio,
camera control/shading room.
A full complement of Lynx
Technik Series 5000 interface and
signal processing solutions, in 17
2RU frames were installed in the
but the transition is towards digital
matrix systems,” Helkamaa says.
“Even in relatively small units
we have digital matrix based intercom systems because of the stability
and versatility.”
Riedel and fellow Germany
company Delec, with its oratis commentators’ panels and intercom
system, are the leading proponents of carrying commentary
feeds on the same circuits as communications and the main audio.
While neither Glensound nor
intercom manufacturer RTS/Telex
is immediately following this
trend, the two recently collaborated to produce the COIN GT-013,
which combines commentary and
talkback front-end functionality
in a single box.
There is concern among both
broadcasters and other manufacturers that having commentary
on the same carrier as other
audio feeds is a risk, with the
chance that the commentator
circuits could go down if there
is a break in the connection, as
OB van and include 3G/HD-SDI,
frame synchronisers, up/cross/downconverters, distribution amplifiers,
as well as control and monitoring.
KBS installed over 140 modules.
The Lynx Technik units interface
with the rest of the van’s video infrastructure that includes Sony cameras
(HDC-1000/HDC-1500/HDC3300), a Sony video mixer (MVS
8000x — main mixer, and MFS 6000
— backup mixer), Snell Cygnus
happened during the live first
semi-final of last year’s Eurovision Song Contest.
Integrated future
Despite this, Riedel sees full integration as the future. “If you look
at contemporary installations and
how many different systems and
signals are distributed side-by-side,
it makes a lot of sense to us to use
one single integrated infrastructure, both in terms of installation
and maintenance,” comments
spokesman Nils Quak.
On this issue YLE’s Helkamaa
says, “We favour the integrated
thinking pattern for production.
The Riedel intercom system is by
its nature an AES router and we are
utilising this feature as well. It is an
advantage to have the commentary
signals in and out as well as a full
set of intercom connections with
one single cable.”
Andy James at SIS Live is more
circumspect: “On large scale systems we currently favour keeping
commentary systems separate from
main multilateral circuits as it offers
an extra level of redundancy should
the main circuits fail. A broadcaster
could continue to commentate if
they lost pictures. However, the
potential cost savings in using systems that combine video, audio and
communications circuits mean we
will always consider their use, provided there is sufficient redundancy
in the system.”
The question whether to combine
or not combine the commentary
with other signals will continue to
be the biggest faced in this small
but important area of sports
broadcast technology over the next
few years. Armchair fans will mostly be oblivious to this; the main
requirement continues to be to hear
what the commentator says — and
vehemently disagree with it.
288x480 video routing switcher,
monitoring from TV Logic, and a
VSM control system that manages
communications between the router,
mixers, and Lynx Technik interface
equipment. The audio production
room includes a Studer Vista 9 audio
mixer with integrated router, a Riedel
Artist 128x128 intercom, and audio
monitoring from Genelec. The audio
room is equipped for 5.1 monitoring.
www.lynx-technik.com
Tough specification required for extensive winter sports coverage
Czech TV van gets Visual treatment
By Fergal Ringrose
Systems integrator and multiscreen platform provider Visual
Unity has enabled Czech TV to
enhance its production capabilities by delivering the broadcaster’s fully HD-equipped outside
broadcast vehicle.
Designed to capture mainly
sporting and cultural events, the
new vehicle is based on a 26 ton
MAN chassis with a single expanding side. At 12m long and nearly
4m high, it is the second completely
HD-equipped vehicle in Czech
TV’s fleet and provides the entire
technical infrastructure needed to
deliver outside broadcast content in
full HD.
Jakub Kabourek, CEO of
Visual Unity, said: “As the Czech
Republic’s state broadcaster,
Czech TV is committed to delivering a premium viewing experience for its audience and constantly strives to deploy the latest
technology to optimise its operations. This philosophy was the
driving force behind its decision
to invest in a new vehicle that
could deliver high definition content from major outside broadcast events.”
Visual Unity’s brief was to
ensure that the new vehicle was
compatible with Czech TV’s existing systems and interfaces, while
also providing the high standard
and effective design needed to
tackle demanding video and audio
productions. Jiri Jires, head of
Czech TV’s Outside Broadcast
department said: “Our main aim
was to build a truck that could easily be used for the daily production
of material from smaller sports
venues and theatres, and from
places within cities where we can’t
use larger trailers.
“We intend to gradually
expand and upgrade our OB fleet
and we believe that our next truck
will follow the design of this latest vehicle. I was very impressed
with the way in which Visual
Unity incorporated all our special
requirements into this project.”
Under the direction of Project
Leader Tomas Vesely, the new
vehicle was coachbuilt in the UK
by Spectra Engineering and engineered together with Megahertz.
Once this part of the project was
completed, the truck was driven to
Visual Unity so that the engineering team could finish the custom
installation. In total the project
took just 10 months to complete.
Vesely added: “The most
demanding stage of the project was
the initial layout design, which we
worked on very closely with the
customer. We needed to install a lot
of equipment, while at the same
time provide an efficient, ergonomic operational space for the
crew, including a comfortable 5.1
surround sound suite for audio
Sachtler support
for polar bear shoot
By David Stewart
When cinematographer David
Linstrom signed on to shoot a
segment of National Geographic
Wild-America’s Big Five, he
turned to Sachtler for camera
support. “This segment is about
scientists from the United States
Geological Survey, conducting a
study on polar bears,” he
explained. “They go out across
the frozen sea from the town of
Deadhorse, on the northern slope
near the Arctic, and look for
bears on the ice. When they find a
bear that hasn’t been tagged
before, they shoot it from a distance with a tranquiliser dart.
After it becomes immobilised,
they land and go to work taking
the bear’s vitals — tagging, weighing and logging the information
into their record book.
“To document this, my camera package featured a Sony
F800 and the Sachtler System 20
“The Sachtler fluid head stayed fluid — even in -33˚C weather”
Visual Unity’s brief was to ensure that the new vehicle was
compatible with Czech TV’s existing systems and interfaces
The vehicle is equipped with Snell Kahuna 3ME vision mixer,
Miranda NVISION NV8280 router, and Studer Vista 8 console
S1 SL HD fluid head and tripod.
I would be covering everything
from helicopter-to-helicopter
shots to tripod shots of details of
polar bears in the snow. We needed solid support that could stand
up to the rigors of the arctic locations,” he explained.
“At times we were at -33˚C,
flying in a Hughes 500D helicopter. Even with these extreme
conditions, I knew I could rely on
my Sachtler to work flawlessly.
Sachtler is simply the best tripod
in the industry for documentary
and fieldwork. They are lightweight yet stable and the controls
make it a joy to work with a long
lens. By using the tension settings,
I personalise the balance and
resistance so I can dial in just the
right amount of tension in order
to get beautifully smooth pans
and tilts. And the head always
works like it is supposed to, no
matter what the temperature. The
seals are tight so grit doesn’t get in
and cause bumps.” Linstrom cites
the design and construction of the
tripod as another factor that sets
Sachtler apart. “The speed levers
on the tripod decrease the time it
takes to set the height and it’s also
ergonomically correct, as if a
camera operator designed it.”
www.sachtler.com
mixing. Achieving this required
some thought, given the fixed size
of the 12m chassis. Another issue
we had to resolve was incorporating several different heating systems, which are needed because
Czech TV plans to use the truck
extensively for winter sports events.
The final systems integration challenge was integrating LSB’s VSM
control system, which is used to
control the majority of the systems
on board the truck.”
The vehicle is equipped with
eight cameras — six Grass Valley
LDK 8000 Elite series HD
cameras, plus one radio camera
and one SuperMotion camera. It
also has two EVS XT-3 servers,
IP Director, XF2 storage with
removable drives for data
exchange with post production
facilities, a Snell Kahuna 3ME
vision mixer, a Miranda NVISION NV8280 matrix router, an
LSB VSM control system, a
Studer Vista 8 audio console,
Genelec and Fostex audio monitoring, Dolby E encoders-decoders,
Clear-Com Eclipse intercom and
Harris G5 graphics.
Czech TV took delivery of its
new OB truck in October and has
already put it through its paces. Its
first successful live production was
the Euro Floorball Tour 2011, which
took place in Brno, Czech Republic,
at the beginning of November.
www.visualunity.com
RTS comms for Viditech
outside broadcast truck
Viditech Broadcast Facilities has
invested in a new outside broadcast
vehicle: OBV5. The new truck, which
is designed to serve up to 12 cameras,
will be used primarily for television
productions, including sporting
events, talk shows and general entertainment. “It‘s a fully-equipped, and
yet extraordinarily compact truck,”
said Jan de Pijper, Viditech’s MD.
Moreover, the TV control room on
wheels offers the best of both worlds,
as he explained: “The truck is highly
versatile but at the same time features
powerful technology and delivers a
high level of quality.”
The truck is equipped with an
RTS Cronus digital matrix with
32 ports as well as numerous
KP-12 series keypanels. MCP-9012 microphones and PH-88R5 headsets from Telex complete the set-up.
de Pijper explained the reasons
for his choice of RTS/Telex systems: “We have been working a lot
with products from RTS/Telex.
Furthermore, we’ve had uniformly
positive experiences with them.
Inside the new truck, systems from
RTS/Telex enable communication
between members of the
production team
They offer flawless performance
and are extremely reliable, which
is particularly important. You can
hardly change your intercom system in the middle of a live broadcast, so you have to have 100% confidence in the system you choose.”
Since the installation had to be
completed to a tight schedule, the
ability to work closely with Axon
Digital Design in general, and Area
Sales Manager Leo Smeding in
particular, also proved crucial to
the success of the undertaking.”
www.rtsintercoms.com
25
TVBE Jan P26-38 Acq v3_TVBE_SEPT_P21_37_sports 11/01/2012 14:34 Page 26
TVBEU R O PE A C Q U I S I T I O N I N N O VAT I O N S
Bigger, higher, faster
The key new technology trends at the higher end of the broadcast camera marketplace recently have been a
move to larger sensors, higher resolution and higher frame rates. David Fox talks to end-users and vendors
about the key developments in camera speed, lenses and sensors as we head into 2012
Hands on: There was lots of interest in the Canon C300 at the many open days held for it recently
“Large sensors have provided
perhaps the most creative benefit
[…] by enabling cinematographers
to come closer to replicating the
look of film. Shallow depth of
field and low light sensitivity are
often listed as the most obvious
benefits, but improved dynamic
range is also very important. The
new EOS C300 provides 800%
dynamic range and around 12
stops of latitude (using Canon
Log gamma) to allow creation of
a really filmic look,” says Yabsley.
With 35mm sensors, users
have all the PL mount cine lenses
to work with. “Each of these has
their own look and feel, giving the
DP choices that did not exist with
the smaller format systems. It also
returns the DP to the comfort
zone that they developed over the
years using 35mm film. Not all of
these lenses will perform as well
with the electronic sensor as they
did with film, but enough of them
”Super35mm appears to be
becoming a de facto standard in
mainstream production, mainly
because of compatibility with
existing lens stock. Super35mm
can provide most, if not all of
the benefits people expect from a
large sensor — shallow depth of
field, sensitivity, etc — which
together with lens compatibility
make it an appropriate choice
for many projects,” says Peter
Yabsley, EMEA business development Professional Video,
Canon Europe.
“One of the big surprises for
us was how many people used
Alexa, not just feature films, but
documentaries and soaps. We
never expected a soap opera to
adopt the 35mm format,” says
Marc Shipman-Müller, product
manager Camera Systems, Arri.
There are also wildlife documentaries being shot on Alexa,
do function well enough for us
to utilise,” says Jeff Cree, VP
Technical Services, Band Pro.
It isn’t just 35mm cinemasize sensors but also larger sensors, as used by some relatively
inexpensive DSLR cameras,
which Yabsley says have “democratised a ‘cinematic’ style of
movie-making.”
Where sensors are bigger than
S35mm there are problems, says
Cree. “People want to use them
for depth of field control, but you
are back to the problem of limited
availability of lenses that cover
these systems.”
although only about half of them
want the shallow depth of field,
others just want the extra latitude
(and often use it with a B4 format
lens adaptor).
Shipman-Müller believes that
35mm sensors will become standard for a lot of broadcast work,
outside of sports and studios
where you need big box lenses.
“For other productions people are
adopting 35mm at an astonishing
rate,” he says. This is partly because
so many people have now worked
with DSLRs. “That has really
trained the world to use larger
format cameras.” Although larger
sensors are most notable for their
shallow depth of field, the extra
sensitivity they can offer means
they don’t have to be wide open if
you want greater depth of field.
Sony’s large format, single
sensor line-up now includes the
FS100, PMW-F3 XDCAM EX,
“Super35mm appears to be becoming a de facto
standard in mainstream production, mainly
because of compatibility with existing lens
stock” – Peter Yabsley, Canon Europe
and F65. “The technology is
developing quickly, which is why
the market is so competitive,” says
Peter Sykes, Sony’s strategic marketing manager for the F65 and
Digital Cinematography.
“The F65 uses a 20-megapixel
(8K) CMOS sensor, but the
response to the camera when people saw the pictures was based on
the performance, not just the resolution. It wasn’t really a single
thing, it was a whole step change
in the picture,” (more stops, better
sensitivity, etc). “The emphasis
has changed from resolution to
overall performance,” he says.
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“If sensor resolution continues to increase,” Yabsley agrees,
“in future we may also see some
benefit in larger sensor sizes
which help to maintain a certain
pixel pitch. Many factors would
have to be considered — size
and power consumption among
them — but lack of compatibility with existing glass would
seem to one of the main potential limitations.”
“The higher resolution systems have solved much of the
artefact issues such as moiré and
the harsh edges seen in lower
resolution cameras [and many
DSLRs]. We have reached a
point where we are at an equivalent capture capability to the
human eye,” says Cree. “Going
to 35mm sensors returns the creative control back to the DP that
he had with film. It also allows
the development of higher pixel
count systems while maintaining
the sensitivity due to the size
of the individual photosites.
Adding higher frame rates to the
base camera system just adds
versatility to the system.”
There has long been a desire
for a film look from video, which
is why P+S Technik created its
Mini35 and Pro35 image converters in 2001, for use with
1/3-inch and 1/2-inch cameras.
Michael Erkelenz, manager of its
Digital Capture Business Unit,
believes this technology still has
a place. “The price of an image
converter setup including camera
is about the same as a new large
sensor camera, but you have perfect control over depth of field,
proven workflows with older
cameras and a free choice of
lenses (because of the availability
of IMS mounts with the P+S
image converters).”
However, the move to larger
sensors has taken such a hold that
even mainstream broadcast manufacturers like Ikegami are entering the market. Its upcoming
HDS-F90 large sensor camera is
designed for lower-cost drama
production. It is likely to use a
single 4K 4/3-inch CMOS sensor
(similar to Panasonic’s AF-101),
take PL-Mount lenses, and record
to Ikegami’s GFCAM solid-state
recording system, offering I frame
only recording at 100Mbps,
MPEG-2 (4:2:2).
Design factors
When considering sensor performance, you have to look at “the
relationship between sensitivity,
resolution and signal-to-noise
TVBEU R O PE A C Q U I S I T I O N I N N O VAT I O N S
ratio. Changing any one of these
variables affects the others, so the
challenge is to find an appropriate
balance,” says Yabsley.
For the designers, power consumption is important. “A variety
of circuitry can be integrated into
a CMOS sensor, eg, for noise
reduction, but each such addition
can make the chip larger and
more power-hungry,” he explains.
“It’s important to note that
although each component in the
camera system — lens, sensor
and processor — should perform
to as high a level as possible, it’s
the combination and integration
of the entire system that is
important.” Canon designs and
manufactures its own large
CMOS sensors, which “allows us
to optimise design and performance in each camera to create the
best possible balance.”
“The advancements in CMOS
sensor technology have allowed
us to build sensors that over sample so that many of the problems
created by the earlier Bayer
sensors have been eliminated,”
says Cree. “Backlit designs open
more of the front surface of the
imager to be used for photosites,
on sensor 16-bit A/Ds and parallel data transfer reduce the noise
and improve the speed of the data
transferred from the imagers used
in today’s cameras. All of these
things improve the performance
of the imager, reducing noise,
increasing sensitivity and improving dynamic range,” he says.
“The development of the F65
has taken us beyond what we can
accomplish with the current
scanning technology of film. The
16-bit A/D provides over 35,000
steps of gradation and the colour
gamut is wider than the current
print film stocks. The ability to
shoot raw provides the greatest
capabilities in post and with the
new integrated systems providing
multiple deliverables from the raw
data is a simple process,” he adds.
4K plus
“For broadcast applications
intended for TV, I don’t see any
good reason to have higher
resolution than 1920x1080,” says
Rick Robinson, Division VP,
Marketing, Vision Research.
Viewfinders and TX and other innovations
By David Fox
Sensor improvements haven’t
been the only innovations in
camera technology recently. A
digital camera with an optical
viewfinder “gets requested a
lot from cinematographers and
operators”, and is now available in the Alexa Studio. The
viewfinder has zero delay and
shows a bright, sharp full
colour image through the taking lens.
“Optical viewfinders are artefact-free, show natural motion
portrayal, accurate colour fidelity
and proper white balance,” says
Marc Shipman-Müller.
“Operators see exactly what is
happening, right when it is happening, and experience less eye
fatigue. Cinematographers appreciate the ability to judge lighting
through the viewfinder and to
work with the camera even
when it is powered off since
choosing lenses, deciding on staging, setting up shots, pre-lighting
“There are exceptions. If the
camera is not using some kind of
optical low-pass filter to minimise
debayering artifacts, then oversampling and scaling can solve
this problem. In the future, having
oversampled images may allow
for panning within a frame after
acquisition and during playback,
but the infrastructure to support
this is not in place yet.”
“We don’t think 4K is cost efficient, so far,” agrees Erkelenz.
“Besides this there is no creative
benefit related to 4K and it is not
possible to deliver the resolution
to the end user,” he says.
Ronny Van Geel, Grass Valley’s
director of Product Management,
Cameras, makes the point that a
single 4K Beyer-pattern sensor can
give you fewer pixels than a threechip HD camera. “On a 4K you
have only 2K of green, 1K of red
and 1K of blue. On today’s threesensor 1920x1080 camera you have
2K of green, 2K blue and 2K red,
so you can compare it to a 6K single sensor camera.”
Gustav Emrich with a prototype of JVC’s 4K camcorder,
which has an innovative processor it also uses for 3D
120fps: Arri’s Alexa will run twice as fast with a software download
or rehearsing before the camera is
powered up can save precious
time on the set.” The Alexa
Studio also has a 4:3 sensor, for
use with anamorphic lenses. Also new is the modular
Alexa M, a compact design
developed primarily for 3D use
with the Cameron-Pace Group,
for use in its 3D rigs. The frontend of the Alexa M transmits
uncompressed raw sensor data
at around 18Gb per second to a
back-end image processor/
recorder using a hybrid fibre
optic cable that can also power
the head. Weighing well under
3kg, the Alexa M head has multiple mounting points.
The fibre means the head
can be up to 1km from the body,
which “allows for some unique
and extremely innovative 3D
camera applications. We hope
CPG will take full advantage of
them in the months ahead,”
says Franz Kraus, managing
director, Arri Munich. Arri will
integrate elements of CPG’s 3D
rig automation technology into
the camera.
Grass Valley has introduced its first generation
3Gbps transmission system
from the camera head to the
CCU, over triax and fibre, at
higher bit rates — which could be
3D, higher resolution or higher
frame rates. “That pipe of data
flow is always important, and
will support what comes next,”
says Marcel Koutstaal.
Don’t miss any action: The 16-camera Camargus Panoramic Camera System
There are also physical limitations of how many pixels you can
put on a sensor. “You can’t make
half a photon,” he adds.
However, Grass Valley isn’t
ignoring 4K, as it is a potential
successor for current HD formats,
however it is focused on live production. “4K can have a much
faster and more positive business
model in the digital cinema
market,” as 4K in the home “is
not likely to take place anytime
soon,” says Marcel Koutstaal,
SVP and GM Grass Valley
Camera Product Group. Besides,
while movies are expected to go
through a huge amount of post
production, live broadcasting can
only deliver what it acquires, and
broadcasters don’t want to have
to transcode and colour correct
everything live.
“The technical parameters are
nice to discuss, but the industry
needs to make money, so flexibility, usability and interchangeability between products is more
important than another step in
resolution,” says Koutstaal —
which is why Grass Valley is more
intent on offering better integration between products, such as
allowing a vision mixer control
over camera settings or controlling
a router from the camera to give
different signals in the return feed.
With Alexa, keeping the
workflow simple was a key consideration. “It means people can
spend more time creatively rather
than with transcoding and fixing,” says Milan Krsljanin, director of Business Development,
Arri. 4K quadruples the data
flow compared to HD. “It immediately imposes a very big burden
on post production.”
Even Digital Intermediate
work for movies is mostly in 2K,
with good results on the screen,
he says. Although 4K has benefits for some types of work, such
as visual effects, in general if
you are dealing with such large
amounts of data “you have to
compress, but that’s a compromise and can affect the beauty of
the image.” Some 4K and above
workflows use a lot of compression. Red raw images can have
12x, 15x or 18x compression.
If you are going to output to
HD anyway, working in 4K “may
give an improvement in image
sharpness, but that is not unlimited,” says Krsljanin. Besides, he
finds that with digital video most
DoPs “ask how they can soften
the picture. Sharpness can be a
hindrance in perceptual terms,
which is why people use softening
filters. The most critical thing in
TV and movies are close ups, and
they need to look glamorous,
which sharpness rarely improves.
Sharpness may be perfect for
natural history, but not for actors.
It makes them look older than
they really are.”
High-resolution imaging can
have benefits for 2K filmmakers,
maintains Gustav Emrich,
European product manager,
JVC, “as now you are able to
freely select any area of your
image and just select the scene
information you really need. For
example, perhaps you’re shooting some nice scenery of an old
town and you want to pick up a
lot of the detail. In your workflow you can simply zoom into
the part that you like, or remove
areas that you don’t want.”
Canon feels that using a higher resolution sensor is the optimal
way to provide the best quality
HD footage from a single sensor,
as shown in its new C300
27
TVBEU R O PE A C Q U I S I T I O N I N N OVAT I O N S
camcorder. By using a sensor with
8.3MP resolution, it delivers
native 1080-line output in all
three RGB channels, which
improves colour reproduction,
resolution, dynamic range and
sensitivity. “This resolution permits an optical low pass filter that
utilises a higher cut-off frequency
to minimise Moiré and aliasing in
detailed subjects,” says Yabsley.
“Any time that you are oversampling and down converting
you are going to get additional
information that you would not
get from a native sensor so you
do get a visible improvement in
picture quality,” adds Cree.
“The adoption of HD faced more
and larger hurdles than does
the migration to 4K,” says Band
Pro Marketing Manager Seth
Emmons. “In many ways, going
from film to 2/3-inch HD was a
further departure than going
from film to single chip 4K. The
look, depth of field and lenses
were dramatically different and
the camera manufacturers were
still working toward creating a
film look instead of a video look.
“Now the colour science has
dramatically improved, as well as
the reproduction of grain/noise, to
be more akin to film. The F65 now
has a wider colour gamut than
film and, at 16-bit, the ACES-IIF
workflow will also help maintain
the standard of quality that film
alone has long enjoyed.”
We see a story through however many cameras are covering
a production. “There are many
events during a broadcast that
are either missed because they
weren’t recorded or were out of
frame,” points out Patrick Ott de
Vries, Broadcast business manager, Vision Research. “Imagine
capturing the whole event in
higher resolution and then panning to material outside of the
traditionally framed HD shot to
capture unpredictable events
and at the same time record an
entire event in super slowmotion.” This would give a
greater chance of not missing
anything important.
One way to do this is to use
more cameras, and then combine
their outputs together to create
a huge picture covering a
whole sports pitch. This is what
Belgium-based Camargus is
offering with its Panoramic
Camera System.
This uses a rig of 16 2/3-inch
HD cameras (each using
1600x1200 CCD sensors), plus
stitching software to combine
their outputs into a very highresolution panorama. A user can
then zoom into any part of the
picture using a virtual camera. It
will mean that any incident can be
seen, making it perfect for sports
analysis. It comes with a zoom
controller that offers instant
replay with loop record and slow
motion playback. It should be
available during the Summer.
“Improvements in compression technology mean that even
4K resolution can be processed in
realtime, using standard post production tools, and proprietary
software or hardware would not
normally be required,” says John
Kelly, general manager, JVC
Professional Europe.
JVC’s new GY-HMQ10 4K
camera uses SD card recording
(to four cards) and a standard 2K
codec. Users receive four HD files
that can also run independently.
“This means that you can check
your content straight away in
your PC with almost any media
player,” says Emrich. “An editing
system can handle this as four
files; with a powerful PC, these
four files could be matched as a
single 4K2K file.”
NHK is using JPEG 2000 for
its 4K trials, having selected the
intoPIX JPEG 2000 technology
to help develop a compact 4K
acquisition system that should
be as easy to use as HD. The
intoPIX system compresses the
4K images into a single JPEG
2000 stream in realtime, without
any tiling. The system has been
tested on sports and a live broadcast of heart surgery.
www.arri.com
www.bandpro.com
www.canon-europe.com
www.camargus.com
www.grassvalley.com
www.ikegami.de
www.intopix.com
www.jvcpro.de
www.pstechnik.de
www.sonybiz.net
www.visionresearch.com
28
Faster than the speed of light
NEWS
IN BRIEF
Cameras are probably now about as fast as you’ll ever want them to be. And many
high-speed cameras are just as suitable for normal speed work. David Fox reports
BVE Penta router
The MIT Media Lab recently created a camera that can capture
light at a trillion frames per second
(fast enough to see photons move).
“We use a very regular pulsed light
source and a camera that is not one
camera but an array of 500 sensors, each triggered at a trillionth
of a second delay, so even though
each of our sensors is slow, we can
still capture a fast movie,” explains
Postdoctoral Associate Andreas
Velten. There is a demonstration
on YouTube (http://bit.ly/uV49j9).
Most of the applications for such
a camera would be in medicine or
industry, but ideas like the multisensor array might have a place in
broadcasting. However, beyond the
research lab, high-speed camera technology is also gathering pace, from
adding frame rates above 100fps to
conventional cameras to providing
continuous super slow-motion output for sports and other events.
“From our understanding
and customer feedback relating
to the sports broadcast market,
the need over the next two or
three years is not for higher resolution, larger sensors or higher
speed. The real demand from the
market is for continuous highspeed shooting, with a standard
EVS LSM workflow (that is,
without internal memory in the
camera head),” says I-Movix
CEO Laurent Renard.
“The benefit of a continuous hispeed camera is the same as a triple
speed camera but with a higher
Larger sensor, smaller head: The Alexa M is suitable for 3D or remote use
frame rate that will bring you the
ability to get a perfect 10 times
slow-motion and slow it down
instantly thanks to an EVS XT3
production server. The benefit of
this camera is that it can perform
the roles of three separate cameras:
a standard 25fps (or 30fps), a triple
speed, and up to a 10 times slowmotion camera,” he adds.
“The continuous hi-speed
mode will enhance and make easier the production of all major
sports productions in the world,”
says Renard. “Can you imagine up
to 18 hours of continuous super
slo-mo on the EVS LSM network
at 300fps [1080i] in Europe or
600fps [720p] in the US?”
We will see this in action later
this year, as the X10 (which is based
around Vision Research technology) has been chosen to make its
production debut at the London
Olympics. It can be used as a conventional HD camera, and provides a familiar user interface and
controls that any broadcast crew
can use without specialist training.
Starved for light
“Resolution, size and sensitivity are
all interrelated. Most high-speed
broadcast applications are starved
for light. And, with the growing
popularity of ultra slow-motion,
this gets even worse. So, sensitivity
is critical in a high-speed broadcast
solution,” says Rick Robinson,
Division VP, Marketing, Vision
Research, which uses S35mm format sensors on cameras like its
recent Phantom v641.
“One way to get higher sensitivity is to have larger pixels. If
you want to maintain 1080p reso-
lution with larger pixels, then the
physical size of the sensor must
increase. However, when this happens, the sensor can no longer be
covered by common broadcast
lenses. One solution is to move to
35mm lensing, use larger sensors
at HD resolutions and take
advantage of the larger pixel size
and sensitivity.”
“You can either use a lens
design to take advantage of the
native sensor size and extreme
sensitivity or in the case of sports
broadcast you will have to use an
appropriate PL to B4 adapter to
leverage the traditional sports
broadcast B4 lens,” adds Patrick
Ott de Vries, Vision Research’s
Broadcast business manager.
Some broadcasters now use
less standard lenses, to enhance
sensitivity particularly in difficult
venues or lighting conditions.
“We continue to support B4, but
we do have customers that use other lenses to cover the full sensor,”
he adds.
Ultra-slow motion playback can
show detail normally invisible to the
eye. “This playback tends to have a
visceral, emotional impact on the
audience and is an amazing creative
tool,” says Robinson. However, “there
is a practical limit in live broadcast
based on the time available for playback. While 6x or 10x ultra slow-mo
playback is amazing, it may be impractical to go much faster than this.”
v
A key addition to NTP Technology’s
range of digital audio routing and
processing equipment makes its UK
exhibition debut on stand B28 at BVE
2012 in London. “The new Penta 725 IP
audio router offers substantial savings in
network operating costs by eliminating
the need to lease expensive dedicated
telco lines,” explains NTP Technology
Sales Director Mikael Vest. “These lines
are traditionally used to carry audio
from a regional radio or television studio
back to a central location. Designed for
broadcasters and independent studio
operators, the Penta 725 IP allows a
high quality audio routing network to be
operated using low-cost Gigabit IPbased Ethernet lines. It delivers the
additional benefit of being easier to use
than traditional leased-telco-line
systems because it is fully controllable
via our intuitive VMC software.”
www.ntp.dk
Reel-Check tests
Cel-Soft has announced a major new
addition to its suite of quality-control
and monitoring software. Designed to
run on a standard desktop PC or
workstation, Reel-Check Solo-QC
enables a complete set of qualitycontrol tests to be performed on live or
file-based video and audio. It is
compatible with all signal standards and
media file-types currently in common
use, including webcast, broadcast and
444 digital-film formats up to 4K. CelSoft Managing Director Robin Palmer
said: “It allows a very wide range of
video and audio checks to be performed
both on live and file-based signals
without the cost and space overheads
of traditional test equipment.”
www.cel-soft.com
Eclipse Matrix Intercom
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r Powerful connectivity options for expanding intercom access
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Copyright © 2011. Clear-Com, LLC. All rights reserved.
® Clear-Com and Clear-Com logo are registered trademarks of HM Electronics, Inc.
29
Two more stops
LiveMotionConcept’s
latest
Antelope MkII is based on the
Phantom V641 chip (which gives
two more stops of sensitivity
compared to the Antelope MkI),
can shoot at up to 5,800fps HD
and is 3D capable. It also has
improved detail processing to
make the image look much sharper; improved colour correction; two
permanent HD SDI outputs (live
and replay); tally and return signals; a new remote control panel
(controlling the camera trigger
and recorder); and a newly designed broadcast OCP. It can also
work with an internal server,
rather than use an EVS or other
external recorder. LMC also
has a new wireless system, the
Antelope AIR, based on the
MkII, that uses a backpack
transmitter and antenna, developed with assistance on the control side from Riedel.
NAC’s upcoming Hi-Motion II
camera will also have two extra
stops compared to the previous
version; continuous live record and
replay; full integration with an
EVS XT-LSM; Flicker Correction; and twice the on-board memory (96GB). It has three sensors on
its optical block and boasts colour
response similar to the Sony or
Grass Valley OB cameras it will
typically be used with.
Lock in for 3D
For-A has entered the broadcast
high-speed camera market, with
its new VFC-7000. “It goes up to
Richard Harvey with the Hitachi
SK-HD1500 slo-mo camera
700fps, in native HD, with onboard storage for 10 or 30 seconds
at 700fps. In practice this is
plenty, because the playback
time at that rate is quite long,”
says David Ackroyd, European
sales manager.
It has loop recording and you
can trigger it at the end, beginning or in the middle (so it might
record one second before and
after the trigger). “You can
segment the store and loop the
playback or you can record in the
next segment.” Typically you
might have four segments of 2.5
seconds each.
It is both a recorder and server,
and just needs control from the
slow-motion controller. For-A
has its own controller, but it will
work with third-party systems,
such as EVS. “It is a small camera so it can easily be set up in
a 3D arrangement, where you
can sensor-lock the cameras so
speak about the very high costs of
analogue film high speed shots).
Higher speed rates available in
the daily routine do not just allow
standard slow-motion sequences,
but a whole range of motion effects
(ramped motion, time lapsed
motion, fast motion) whose creative value still has to be explored,”
he says.
Erkelenz believes that speed is
the innovation with the most creative benefit, which is why that is
the key feature of the new PS-Cam
X35. “Its sensitivity, resolution and
dynamic range are much more than
good enough for most purposes
and suit our clients’ requirements.
Providing up to 450fps in the everyday production process allows
telling the story differently in a complete new way still to be explored,
without the extra costs of a highly
specialised unit and technician.”
Of course, 450fps cannot be
read out in realtime (no recorder
Grass Valley and Sony have been the main choices
for a mainstream 3x broadcast camera, but now
Hitachi has joined in with its SK-HD1500 — which
promises to be competitively priced
they scan together. You can also
control the two cameras from
one panel. It also has auto iris,
which is important for unattended operation.”
It costs €35,000 and has been
used on US open tennis, Golf
Masters, and Formula One racing. ESPN has been using it for its
3D sports coverage.
More than enough
While larger sensors can capture
more light, they can also allow
greater resolution, but “resolution does not provide a real creative benefit, yet,” says Michael
Erkelenz, manager of P+S
Technik’s
Digital
Capture
Business Unit. All the advantages of resolution and sensor
size are already available with
35mm film, so there are no additional benefits for the audience.
“Higher speed is different. With
digital camera technology, speed
rates and motion effects are possible that have not been available
with film cameras, so far.
“Because of physical and mechanical constraints, speed rates have
been limited with film (just not to
would be fast enough), but the
X35’s internal 18GB buffer
allows recording of “more than
enough” motion effects footage
during one shoot (12 seconds of
footage shot with 450fps gives a
play out time of more than four
minutes). With its large sensor, 11
stops of dynamic range, etc., he
calls the X35 “a true 2-in-1 camera” combining sync sound and
motion effects.
To a T
Weisscam’s new T-1 HD camera
is a similar concept, but with a
smaller sensor, and was designed
to be pure, fast and uncompressed.
Its clean T-shaped lines are built
around three concepts: “Pure, fast
and uncompressed. The idea is
to simplify down to what you
need,” said Seth Emmons, marketing manager at its distributor,
Band Pro. It has one button
(on, off and record) and a touch
screen for record speed (1-350fps),
shutter (exposure), ISO and
colour temperature.
It has a 2/3-inch sensor, Bmount lens, and records uncompressed 12-bit or 10-bit HD
T time: Stefan Weiss wanted a small, modular, uncompromised camera
internally to 4GB memory (for
short high-speed sequences) or
via a 4x3Gbps HD-SDI connection that also carries power and
comms to T-Rec, its recorder,
which uses 1-4TB T-Pak solidstate packs.
There will also be a 4K S35sensor version taking PL-mount
lenses, which will be otherwise
the same, except that users can
crop to 2K and then go to
700fps. “We believe in uncompressed RAW material for
archiving and post production.
We don’t want to put compression on it. It’s very difficult to
decide on the right compression,” says DoP Stefan Weiss,
Weisscam’s CEO. The T-1 will
probably cost €30,000-€35,000.
Arri is making 120fps shooting
available on the Alexa via a software licence key costing €1,350,
which will be recorded using
ProRes 422 HQ (and Avid
DNxHD — itself a new upgrade).
“It gets high speed with full sensor
width, so the image has the same
depth of field and angle of view
as when you record in regular
speed,” says Marc ShipmanMüller, product manager Camera
Systems, Arri. “The benefit for
the producer is that they don’t
have to carry an extra camera for
high speed.”
Sporting chance
”For sports, we are spending a lot of
pixels on motion blur,” but shooting
at higher frame rates reduces this,
says Marcel Koutstaal, SVP and
GM Grass Valley Camera Product
Group. “Customers are looking
for flexibility; equipment that can do
any job,” he adds, which is why its 3x
slo-mo camera can also do 1x and 2x,
or output 1x at the same time as 3x.
Grass Valley and Sony have
been the main choices for a mainstream 3x broadcast camera, but
now Hitachi has joined in with its
SK-HD1500 — which promises to
be competitively priced.
It offers native 1080/150i and
50p (or 720/150P), and has three
2.3Mpixel 2/3-inch IT-CCDs,
with 6Gbps transmission over
SMPTE standard optical fibre.
“One of our objectives is to be able
to offer all the equipment you’d
need from a camera manufacturer
for an OB truck, and slo-mo was the
last piece,” says Richard Harvey,
technical director, Hitachi UK.
There are broadcasters that
have bought all their studio cameras from Hitachi who now won’t
have to look elsewhere for their
OBs, such as Saudi TV, which
has about 150 studio cameras
from Hitachi.
The SK-HD1500’s light sensitivity is F10 at 2000 lux in normal
speed mode, but drops to F7 at
2000 lux at 150fps. Similarly, the
signal-to-noise ratio goes from a
typical -60dB at 50fps to -54dB
at 150fps. Power consumption
should be 60W, without the
viewfinder, and the camera head
will weigh 2.2kg (or twice that
with the fibre adapter).
www.arri.com
www.for-a.com
www.grassvalley.com
www.hitachi-keu.com
www.i-movix.com
www.livemotionconcept.de
www.nacinc.com
www.pstechnik.de
www.visionresearch.com
www.weisscam.com
30
TOUCHDOWN.
MKH 8070 Long Gun Microphone
Capturing the Moment.
The new MKH 8070 is in a league of its own. Its excellent
directivity and off-axis linearity make it your ideal team
member for major broadcast and sporting events.
It will reliably capture that magic moment from a distance
with a true and natural sound, even under the toughest
sonic and climatic conditions.
Part of the flexible MKH 8000 series, just add the MZD 8000
and it is a digital mic.
www.sennheiser.com
High quality lenses and large sensors are good for business
Optical recognition:
Investing in glass
Prime time: Cooke Optics’ new
135mm lens joins its 5/i family
With the rapid change seen in
cameras over the last year or so,
one of the safest places to invest
your money is in glass. Good quality
lenses that work with any of the
popular cameras will always be in
demand, and the large new sensors
are only as good as the glass in
front of them. By David Fox
PL-mount lenses have proved to
be a particularly good investment, as so many new cameras
will work with these cine-style
lenses, either directly or via an
adaptor. “Some manufacturers
are starting to market lenses as
so-called 4K lenses, but 35mm
film has 4K resolution, so all
the Ultra Primes from 1999 are
4K lenses,” points out Marc
Shipman-Müller, Arri’s product
manager for Camera Systems.
“Indeed, to show a good image,
they have to be higher resolution
than the medium.” Of course,
since then lenses have advanced.
The Arri/Zeiss Master Primes use
new glass types and optical
design, to give a better image,
even when one stop wider open,
and include lens data.
Optimo range extended: The Angenieux 45-120mm PL-mount zoom
Arri and Fujinon will ship two
new Alura lightweight zooms in
February: the LWZ 15.5-45mm
and LWZ 30-80mm (T2.8), to
add to its existing 18-80mm and
45-250mm (T2.6) models. These
retain the high image quality, at a
smaller size, “while being about
one third cheaper than the competition,” he says.
They are designed to match
the Alexa camera, and are ideal
for handheld and Steadicam
work, while the two original
Alura Zooms, with their much
wider focal ranges, are better suited to tripod and dolly setups.
“We sold twice as many as
planned of the original ones, so
the next obvious step is to build
lightweight zooms,” says ShipmanMüller. “They are optimised for
digital cameras, with resolution
beyond 4K, and will also work with
film cameras with a rotating shutter (as used on the new Alexa
Studio too).” The €16,800 zooms
have a 31.5mm image circle, so will
cover all the digital cameras,
including those with larger sensors.
The four Alura lenses are
compatible with the Arri Lens
lens technology currently in use
by electronic cameras,” says Jeff
Cree, VP Technical Services,
Band Pro.
“They are also being aberration corrected to a much higher
degree to meet the current
production demands.” He claims
that “the new Leica Summilux-C
Primes are the first of this new
generation of lenses optimised to
get the most performance when
utilising electronic sensors,”
which Leica says reveal more lens
imperfections than film.
The Summilux-C lenses, distributed by Band Pro, are the first
cine lenses produced by Leica
Camera. They have identical
external dimensions, with focus
and iris rings in exactly the same
place, for ease of swapping.
“In the world of digital cinematography with its clean, sharp
images, there is an increased spotlight on the choice of lenses,”
adds cinematographer Florian
Ballhaus, who tested them on a
recent movie, Gambit (CBS
Films). “The Leicas have a wonderful character while being perfectly predictable with their gentle
Leica look that one expects from
“In the world of digital cinematography with its
clean, sharp images, there is an increased
spotlight on choice of lenses. The Leicas have a
wonderful character while being perfectly
predictable” — Florian Ballhaus
off quite gently. I found myself
using less filtration with them
because they render skin tones so
beautifully. I was very impressed
with how uniquely they handled
highlights and flares.”
Cooke Optics has introduced
a pair of 135mm lenses for its
5/i Prime and Panchro lens sets.
The T1.4 135mm for the 5/i has a
illuminating focus ring that eliminates the need for external lights
that might affect the shot.
The Panchro 135mm joins
Cooke’s smaller, lighter weight
lens family at T2.8, and adds
value to the lower-cost lens
range that is often used for second unit film shoots, TV dramas
and documentaries.
Both lenses are colourmatched and calibrated to all
existing Cooke lenses and feature built-in /i Technology,
which provides cinematographers, camera operators and
post teams with such metadata
as lens setting, focusing distance,
aperture and depth-of-field,
hyperfocal distance and focal
length in both metric and imperial measurements.
Martin Scorsese’s Hugo,
which opened late last year, was
the first production to use all
three families of Cooke lenses:
5/i, S4/i and Panchro/i. It was also
the first major motion picture
shot with 5/i lenses and the first
major film to use /i Technology
and Transvideo CineMonitor HD
3D View /i monitors.
Data System. The optical design
should ensure an evenly illuminated image on the sensor or
film plane, while flares, ghosting
and veiling glare are greatly
reduced by Fujinon’s multi-layer
Electron
Beam
Coating.
Breathing has been minimised,
as has colour fringing.
Lightweight
zooms
are
becoming popular for 3D, he
adds, as they allow easy adjustment of focal length without
lens changes, rig readjustments
and calibration.
Prime examples
“Lenses are improving to meet
the need of electronic production.
They are currently being designed
to better match the interface to
the electronic sensor by becoming
more compatible with the on-chip
Double delight: Shipman-Müller with the new Alura lightweight zooms
the still lenses we all know and
love. They are as sharp as you
want them to be but the focus falls
Gregor
Tavenner,
First
Camera Assistant to DP Robert
Richardson, said of the lenses:
“They were absolutely gorgeous;
they had a beautiful feeling.
We ended up taking three
sets together with S4/i and
Panchros, and what we saw was
incredible consistency.”
Cine zooms
Angenieux’s new Optimo 45120mm (T2.8) PL-mount cinematography lens weighs less
than 2kg, making it suitable for
handheld or Steadicam work. Its
optical design avoids breathing.
It also has a 320º focus rotation
with more than 50 precise focus
witness marks. The lens has similar specifications to the 15-40mm
and
28-76mm
lightweight
32
T VBEU R O PE A C Q U I S I T I O N I N N OVAT I O N S
Optimo lenses it has been
designed to complement.
“The 45-120mm lens hasn’t
been off the B camera since
we got it,” says DoP Rodney
Charters, who uses it on
Shameless. “It’s fantastic because
it’s wide enough to be a B camera
coverage lens. Much more exciting though is the fact that it
pushes through to 120 for a 2.8
lens. It’s very sharp and proving
to be a perfect device for our show.”
The Optimo 45-120 is available with the Angenieux Data
System, ADS/I module integrating Cooke Optics’ /i protocol
and designed for all Angenieux
lightweight lenses.
The lens can also use
Angenieux interchangeable mounts
From widest to closest
Abakus has developed an Ultra
High Definition Wide Angle
Lens suitable for use with NHK’s
Super Hi-Vision 8K camera,
which gives it more than enough
resolution to cope with any other
current camera. The PL-mount
lens covers 180º and has “very
controlled distortion for such a
wide angle. It is 10 times better
than the standard B4-mount
lens,” says Abakus’ MD Dr Ken
Pollitt. It will be perfect for allencompassing stadium shots and
costs about £15,000.
Its new XL Borescope, with
PL mount, is suitable for movie
model work. It can focus as close
as the front glass. “How you light
it is the problem,” which is why it
Designed for the C300: Canon’s new Cinema EOS zoom and prime lenses
Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, which opened late last
year, was the first production to use all three
families of Cooke lenses: 5/i, S4/i and Panchroi
for APS-C format DSLR cameras, such as the Canon
EOS 7D, 1D MK IV and C300,
or Nikon D3000/D3100, D300,
and D7000.
To compliment its new EOS
C300 camera, Canon has
launched a new line of Cinema
EOS Lenses. They include the
CN-E14.5-60mm (T2.6) and CNE30-300mm (T2.95–3.7) cine
zooms in EF and PL-mount versions, as well as CN-E24mm
(T1.5), CN-E50mm (T1.3), and
CN-E85mm (T1.3) primes for
EF-mount only. All are designed
to be suitable for 4K production,
and have zoom, focus and iris
markings engraved on angled surfaces for improved readability
from behind the camera.
will probably be offered with an
in-lens ringlight. It will come with
five lenses (10, 14, 20, 28 and
40mm), and options of 90º and
45º bends. Usefully, for such a
long lens, the focus and iris controls are at the back. It will cost at
least £40,000 in March.
Also new is the Abakus 200
2x magnifier, which will adapt
B4-mount lenses for use with
either PL-mount or Micro Four
Thirds cameras and will compensate for the B4 prism block. They
cost £1,500 and should be useful
for high-speed cameras.
Mount up
Most lenses can be fitted to
most cameras, given the right
mounting system. P+S Technik’s
Super Hi and wide: Pollitt shows
off the 180º Super Hi Vision lens
PS-Cam X35 uses the company’s
Interchangeable Mount System.
“Almost all industry standard
mounts are compatible with the
IMS. With IMS, you get the most
out of every lens. It’s completely
up to the user which lens will be
used for which reasons ever,” says
Michael Erkelenz, manager of
P+S Technik’s Digital Capture
Business Unit. IMS adapters are
available for other cameras, most
recently for Sony’s PMW-F3
PS-IMS-F3).
Birger Engineering has lens
adapters that allow Canon EFmount lenses to be fitted to
Panasonic’s AG-AF101 camcorder, Sony’s NEX cameras
(including the FS100) and the
Red One.
They allow users to have automatic and manual control of
focus, iris and image stabilisation
with a variety of EF-mount lenses.
Continuous (video-style) autofocus will be supported on most
Canon L-series lenses. Power is
Chrosziel’s
new
Cam Collimator, for setting up
lenses correctly, is smaller,
more flexible and more costefficient than its previous versions. Where other collimator
types use the sharpness of a
projected Siemens star as the
criteria for adjustment —
which is subjective, as it relies
on an individual‘s power of
vision. Chrosziel collimators
present test results as a simple
graphic, indicating correct
flange focal distance by the
position of a vertical bar
between two other bars.
Its previous Universal
CamCollimator came in two
versions. One had a universally
adjustable sensor head for
lenses and cameras, the other
was for lenses only, as it had
a fixed optical set up, but the
new CamCollimator C-LCC
replaces both and costs about
25% less.
Test bed: Chrosziel’s new CamCollimator
The total length of the optical bench has been reduced to
1m. The modular set up means
the test mount can hold either
the CamCollimator or the
Autoreflex Collimator. The collimation unit can be adjusted in
height, move sideways or tilt.
For lens testing, only one
movable base is needed. It
includes a sliding lens support
with height adjustment. For a
Lens control genie:
Chrosziel’s Aladin Mk II
" #
),%'!
Lens set up and S3D remote control
By David Fox
quick camera test without
changing the measuring block,
an optional second sliding platform is available (C-LCC-P2).
The new Schott LED light
source offers life expectancy of
50,000 hours, and the TFT
monitor sits on a flexible arm.
Chrosziel’s Aladin Mk II is
an 8-channel lens remote control, offering 3D control capability and versatility. It includes
a modular handset and a small
receiver that controls up to
eight motors, which it calibrates
automatically.
For
more
advanced setups, the receiver
has a display, so there is no need
for an extra monitor.
For S3D shooting, the
Aladin Mk II is claimed to be
the only system currently able
to operate focus, zoom and
aperture on both camera lenses
and also control angles and
distance between cameras
simultaneously, thanks to having eight channels.
0.$'%$ /'") #
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33
WHATS’On allows me to plan
multimedia content on all
channels and platforms
from within one single system.
The
LONG-TERM
SCHEDULER
MediaGeniX
www.mediagenix.tv
2012: Analogue Off. DVB On!
DVB World is the largest annual gathering dedicated to
DVB Standards, Services & Technology
Rome | 12 - 14 March
Hotel Crowne Plaza Rome - St. Peter’s
DVB WORLD 2012 features speakers from Microsoft, Siemens, Astra, MDA, Mediaset,
Multichoice, Teracom, Samsung, EBU, IRT, Ofcom, ATSC, TU Braunschweig, European
Union, TU Dresden/Vodafone, Harris, ST Micro, Panasonic, Bilbao University and more.
Pre-Conference Masterclass - UHDTV and 3DTV: Battle of the Giants?
David Wood, Head of New Technologly, EBU
conference t networking t exhibition
www.dvbworld.org
For further information and registration please visit the website.
The Leica look: The T1.4 Summilux-C lenses range from 16mm to 100mm
provided by the camera for most
lenses. Image stabilisation is supported on IS lenses, and this can
be turned on or off from the lens.
Vocas Systems also has a new
E to PL mount adapter, which
allows the use of PL mount lenses
on an E mount body, such as the
FS100. Vocas also has a new
flexible gear ring that can be
attached to the lens for coupling
with a follow focus. It is claimed
to be cheaper than current rings,
while offering the same quality.
www.abakus.co.uk
www.angenieux.com
www.arri.de
www.bandpro.com
www.birger.com
www.canon-europe.com/tv-products
www.cookeoptics.com
www.fujinon.de
www.grassvalley.com
www.leica-camera.com
www.pyser-sgi.com
www.zeiss.com/cine
Broadcast lenses go wider and longer
By David Fox
Live broadcasts and news production have different requirements to cine-style productions,
typically wanting longer zooms,
sophisticated image stabilisation,
and greater versatility. This can
mean heavier, bigger lenses and
greater complexity, but Canon’s
latest superzoom, the DigiSuper
95 (XJ95x8.6B), is about the
same size as the top selling
DigiSuper 86 OB lens, and
slightly lighter. “Normally when
we make it wider, you get distortion, but here it is very minimal.
It’s really fantastic,” says Ken
Koyama, Canon’s European
Broadcast director.
“The laws of physics mean
there are limits to what technological developments can be
applied to the actual lens optics.
Generally with lenses it is the
glass that dictates size and
weight,” he explains. “Over the
years we have seen consistent
progress in lens manufacturers
fulfilling the demands of cameramen and broadcasters by
continually producing lighter
and smaller lenses.
“This has only been possible
with the incorporation of
so that when you pan the camera
and then stop to take the shot,
the stabilisation system stops
immediately — generally, these
type of systems continue moving
for a short time after the pan
stops, which means your framing
goes awry. Canon did do some
work on this with Vinten a few
years ago, but this required sensors in the tripod head, linked to
the lens system, whereas this new
system is all in the lens.
The 95x also uses new technology to counteract breathing
(which can occur when focusing
causes a lens to change picture
size/angle of view): the Constant
Angle Focusing System uses a
32-bit CPU, to calculate and control the zoom to give an almost
zero zooming effect when focusing. The DigiSuper 95 will cost
about 5% more than the 86x
when it ships in February.
Fujinon’s new HA19x7.4 lens
is the first ENG lens (for 2/3-inch
sensor cameras) with three zoom
elements, “which is technically
complicated,” says Andreas
Adler, its general manager,
Optical Division. “It has one
variator, to change focal lengths,
and one compensator to keep the
CLASS act: Koutstaal
with the new LDK-3000+
In his elements: Adler with Fujinon’s
three-zoom-element 19x ENG lens
“The design of the aspheric lens is, therefore,
critical when it comes to fulfilling size
and weight needs and when developing new
zoom lenses for the broadcast sector”
— Ken Koyama, Canon Europe
aspheric lens technology, which
allow the light to converge on an
optimum point, thus enabling
compact lightweight lens assembly geometry with enhanced
optical performance. The design
of the aspheric lens is, therefore,
critical when it comes to fulfilling
size and weight needs and when
developing new zoom lenses for
the broadcast sector.”
Canon’s Image Stabilization
System has an improved optical
shift-type stabiliser that incorporates a sensor inside the lens to
detect vibration. “Compensating
optics are then engaged at high
speed to cancel out any effect on
the image,” he explains. It can
identify the difference between
wobble and deliberate movement,
focus on the CCD, plus a second
lens group variator which moves
relative to the first variator, enabling us to make the lens much
shorter” — more than 5cm shorter
than Fujinon’s previous 22x7.3.
It also offers increased optical
quality thanks to two aspheric
lenses in the front elements, with
particularly good performance in
the corners. It is relatively lightweight, at 2.15kg. In standby
mode the newly-designed, more
ergonomic zoom handle (which
is now being fitted to all HA and
ZA series lenses) uses half the
power of previous zoom controllers, while the servo drive unit
uses a more accurate 16-bit
encoder. The lens can also output
lens data, has a built-in 2.2x
Longer, wider, lighter: Koyama
with the new DigiSuper 95
extender and can shoot as close
as 0.55m.
It is claimed to be ideal for
drama production, but for studio
use there will also be a mini box
version, the HA19x7.4BES, with
integrated Tally light, which
should be available about NAB
time and weigh about 3.5kg.
Fujinon also has new lenses
for 2/3-inch and 1/2-inch format
cameras in both its Select and
Exceed series ranges. The 2/3-inch
XA20sx8.5BMD and 1/2-inch
XS20sx6.3BRM Exceed lenses
“offer excellent telephoto performance at a price level you might
expect of SD professional lenses,”
says Paul Goodwin, divisional
head Broadcast & CCTV Products
Division, at Fujinon’s UK and
Ireland distributor, Pyser-SGI.
They are suitable for pan and
tilt systems. “Both lenses offer
HD telephoto reach at a very
effective price. Either lens will
produce a head and shoulders
image at around 12m from the
subject,” he says.
For 3D and robotics applications, Fujinon has a new HD
motor drive lens, synchronisation unit, and wireless controller.
The XA4x7.5BMD-D3 motor
drive 3D HD zoom comes in
right and left lens versions, with
a 16-bit encoder. It is intended
for 3D and robotics applications
with Fujinon’s new 3D synchronisation controller unit, or can be
used with third-party controls.
Grass Valley’s new CLASS
technology, standing for Chromatic Lens Aberration and
Sharpness Solution, is one way of
improving sharpness and getting
the most out of your existing lenses
without moving to higher resolution sensors, or requiring any new
infrastructure or workflow.
This will mean that viewers
don’t lose information at the
edges of their display, as CLASS
can improve sharpness by up to
70% near the edge of the picture.
“That is visible to the viewer at
home,” says Marcel Koutstaal,
SVP and GM Grass Valley
Camera Product Group.
All lens manufacturers characterise the optical path of each
lens, so CLASS can take that
algorithm and apply it to each of
the lenses it knows about (all the
main ones). But it uses a different
approach to other camera manufacturers in that rather than concentrating on simply reducing
chromatic aberration it prioritises
sharpness (which is something
viewers are more likely to notice).
With the move to larger, higherresolution screens “sharpness is
perceived as far more valuable
than it was five years ago. TV set
manufacturers are using detail
settings differently than they
used to,” he explains.
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35
Red’s Epic adventure
The Red One was the first affordable digital cinema camera. Since then there has been the DSLR revolution and
large sensor cameras released by most manufacturers. Now, after many delays, Red is shipping its next generation
5K camera, the Epic, but can it have the same impact on its predecessors? David Fox reports
If you are shooting HD and want
the large sensor, shallow depth of
field look, there is now a wide
range of cameras available to
suit all budgets, from DSLRs, to
Panasonic’s AF101, Sony’s FS100
and PMW-F3, Canon’s EOS C300
and Arri’s Alexa. But if you want
even higher resolution there are
fewer alternatives within a realistic
budget. Red’s One and Epic are
the most widely used higher resolution cameras for TV production,
but will soon be joined by Sony’s
F65 and the Red Scarlet.
The Red One has been used on
a lot of productions, but there
were many problems with it and
some productions would only
shoot with Red if they had two of
them, so poor was their reputation for reliability.
Epic addresses lots of issues
users had with the Red One,
improving on it while remaining
familiar to One users.
Freelance cameraman/DoP
Ben Spence had a Red One for
two years before it was stable
enough that it wouldn’t crash,
and recently used a four-year-old
Red One that crashed and lost 30
minutes, but he hasn’t had any
crashes with Epic. There was HDSDI dropout any time he started
the camera on his first job with it,
but it was easy to rectify and he
hasn’t had any problems since.
“The Red One was a stills sensor
and a computer jammed into this
body, but Epic has been designed
from the ground up with custom
parts,” he explains.
Spence has recently worked
extensively with the Epic, Alexa and
F3, all of which have their merits.
Epic “is an awkward camera.
Its modularity is one of its biggest
strengths, but also one of its
biggest weaknesses at the moment.
It’s not built with ergonomics in
mind straight out of the box,” which
36
Epic story: Olly Wiggins and Ben Spence with the Red Epic
means it needs a lot of accessories,
many of which aren’t available yet.
It can’t fit on your shoulder easily,
although the body is smaller than
an F3 (but heavier).
“With the Red One, Red totally
changed the way camera companies did their business.” Before
then for digital cinema work there
was the Arri D21, which was hire
only, or very specialist, expensive
cameras like the Panavision
Genesis. “Red really made video
companies like Arri and Sony sit
up and pay attention and produce
cameras like the Alexa and F3.”
In comparison
For Spence the main selling
points of the Epic are its raw
workflow, the high-speed shooting, with high frame rates of up
to 300fps at 2K and 120fps at
5K, the small size, touchscreen
and built-in remote control.
“For certain jobs it is an amazing camera.”
He sees the F3 as a budget TV
camera. “For the price and size, it’s
fantastic.” The Alexa is also “a
to see which mount its clients prefer. It is also looking at buying
Scarlet and F65 cameras.
“The undoubted success of
Alexa is that DoPs see it as a
film camera that shoots digitally.
Epic requires a new approach. You
need a proper DIT [digital imaging technician] who can work
the footage. You can do 3D LUTs
[look-up tables], etc. on the Alexa,
but it’s not essential, whereas with
the Epic it is,” says Wiggins.
The Epic has a sensor that is
about 5-8% bigger than those on
the F3, Alexa and Red One, but
most cine lenses are designed to just
cover an S35 frame, so you can get
some vignetting at 5K, although it
hasn’t been pronounced on any lens
Spence has used. “It’s always been
“Each job is different. The Canon 5D may be
ideal one day, Alexa the next, and another job
may need 5K” — Olly Wiggins
fantastic camera. It produces very
pretty pictures very easily, and is
perfect for episodic TV and films.”
Spence shot a feature film with
Alexa. “It just works, and feels like
a seriously made camera. Arri
knows how to make cameras.”
He sees the Epic primarily as a
promo and commercials camera,
“for very good looking short-form
stuff.” Olly Wiggins, DoP and
managing director of S+O Media,
agrees, saying it is best for singleday shoots, particularly for the
type of client who wants to push
things further, which you can in
5K, and couldn’t with the Alexa.
London-based S+O Media hires
out a wide range of cameras,
including the Epic, Red One,
Alexa, F3 and FS100. It will order
six to eight EOS C300s initially,
but as the PL-mount version won’t
come out until March it is waiting
shoot in 4K mode, which crops the
sensor slightly, or just crop in post
if necessary.
“Overall, it’s different tools for
different jobs,” says Spence. “Each
job is different. The Canon 5D
may be ideal one day, Alexa the
next, and another job may need
5K,” adds Wiggins. “As all the
cameras have the same PL mount
and S35 format, you can use the
same lenses you are used to.” S+O
has PL-mount adapters fitted to
its Sony FS-100s too, and on the
Red One MX, while the F65 will
also be able to use the same lenses,
which is why about two-thirds of
lens sales now are PL-mount compared to B4, whereas it used to be
the other way around. The Epic
will also be able to mount to
Canon L-series lenses, and lenses
from other stills cameras, as well as
Red’s own lenses.
Most of Spence’s work with Epic
has been on fashion shoots,
although he’s also done music
Epic’s modularity means it can be small enough to fit on a dashboard
a worry, but it’s never been an issue.
It’s not quite as bad as people are
worried about,” but it could be a
problem for wider lenses, wide
open. If it is a problem, you could
videos with it (where the high frame
rates are very useful). “Straight out
of the box, the Alexa is a better camera, but Epic has more toys to play
with. The resolution doesn’t make a
huge difference, especially if you are
viewing on HD or YouTube, but it is
very useful for visual effects or if you
need to stabilise the image. You can
easily pull out a close up with no
drop in quality.”
Wiggins has had calls from
productions wanting to use Epic
for ad campaigns that will also
use big billboards, as they can use
stills from it at high resolution.
“It’s the only moving picture
camera that the Getty image bank
approves for stills images out of
the video, so it is ideal for fashion.
You can shoot a whole campaign
on one camera,” adds Spence. Its
design means it can fit in the hand
like a DSLR, although it is “a bit
Sony enters high resolution
market with new F65 camera
By David Fox
In control: Redmote comes as
standard in $58,000 package
clunky and heavy.” Red has plans
to produce a higher resolution
sensor for stills use.
“It’s a powerful tool to have as
a stills camera running at 120fps.
It is amazing for catalogue shots,”
he says.
Physically the Epic works well,
but is missing things that would
allow it to work better. For example, it only has one video output
(HD-SDI) and the audio inputs
are just mini-jacks for guide audio.
There will be a separate module
for professional I/O, which will
come with XLR inputs, different
HD outputs, additional monitors
and, he hopes, power outputs and
more HD-SDIs. But that will
increase the camera’s size, and
Spence feels that the small size is
one of its best features. “It can be
broken down to something small
enough to fit as a dashboard camera in a car.”
The Redmote is standard in
the $58,000 Epic-M package
“and is a really cool little tool,” he
says. It can control all the settings
on the camera via Wi-Fi and
is particularly useful for a
Steadicam or remote head. “It’s a
really powerful tool to see what
settings are and change them without interfering with the camera.”
The touchscreen is also useful,
and developing with each update.
It allows users touch to focus,
“which is great for documentaries
where you don’t want a focus
puller,” he says.
Epic workflow
Cameras generally have become
more complicated. Even on the
F3, if it hasn’t been re-set, it is
easy to get something wrong.
“The Epic is very complicated, so
it is easy to screw up. You get all
these cool things, but you have to
know how to use them.” Aspect
ratio and resolution choices are
not non-destructive, requiring
care. There are also lots of compression options that, if you
make the wrong choice, could
result in compression artefacts or
running out of recording space.
“The Epic is more powerful
than the Alexa, but that’s not
always a good thing. The Red is
not forgiving if you do anything
wrong. It’s a lot slower to use and
clumsier,” says Spence.
“The biggest mistake you can
make with Red is going into it
without planning the workflow,”
making sure to have enough hard
drive capacity for copies and
making a higher relaSony is now shipping its
tive investment when
new F65, which has an
they buy a camera, “so
8K sensor, creating a 4K
the large step that
image, and is competiSony has taken technotively priced (at €38,000),
logically gives a sense
with hundreds of orders
of confidence to owner/
worldwide.
operators that this camIt is designed to work
era will be relevant for
well with one of the
many years. The Sony
new standards for digital
F900, when it came out,
cinema: the IIF-ACES
was a similar step for(Image
interchange
ward and a lot of the
framework,
Academy
people who bought
colour encoding specifithose cameras are still
cation) 16-bit workflow,
using them 10 years on.
created by the Motion
We expect the same
Picture Academy to stanfrom the F65.”
dardise digital post proIn the US, the Sony
duction. It also outputs
F35 did a lot of televi4K (4096x2160) to match
sion work when it first
the DCI standard for
came out and is still
digital cinema (including
being used for series
Sony’s 4K projector).
like Bones. “I think
The F65 records
there will be those high16-bit linear raw, and is
end dramas that will
one of the first cameras
take up the F65,” he
with no gamma controls
says. It works with stanand no knee, so no high- ACES high: Band Pro’s Emmons with the new Sony F65 dard film-style acceslight compression. “We
sories, which is ideal for
are recording the entire dyn“This reduces aliasing in
those that are still transitioning
amic range of the sensor,” says
the picture to almost nothing,
from film.
Richard Lewis, Sony’s product
so the optical low pass filter
The camera has a mechanispecialist for Digital Cinemadoesn’t need to be so aggrescal shutter, synchronised with
tography. The F65 sensor is a
sive, improving the overall
the read-out of the sensor to
little bit wider than Super
MTF [Modulation Transfer
eliminate strobing, and four
35mm, meeting the DCI stanFunction] of the camera,”
built-in, perfectly colour baldard of 1.88:1 instead of the
says Lewis.
anced ND filters. It should
1.77:1 of normal HD.
“If you do a debayer using
also be simple to operate, with
“The camera captures 16an intelligent algorithm, you
a single page menu, iPad conbit, so it fits into the ACES
can derive higher resolution,
trol, and HD-SDI output with
workflow with almost no
so you could go to 5K or 6K,
viewing LUT for on-set moniprocessing,” says Band Pro
but in the SDK [Software
toring with focus assist zoom.
Marketing Manager Seth
Developer’s Kit] we are limitThe F65 is not just a camEmmons. “A camera that caping it to HD, 2K and 4K
era, but part of a complete
tures 10- or 12-bit undergoes
output at the moment. It is
system from capture through
processing, which changes the
super sampling HD, so there
post, says Emmons. “They
digital information. The F65 is
will be no aliasing in the pichave thought out how you deal
the first camera that is truly
ture,” he explains. But users can
with the information on set and
creating images natively for the
go back to re-render the raw
in post.” In the US Band Pro
workflow of the future, and the
data to get 4K if they find they
ordered 75 and expects to order
images you create on set will
need a big-screen version of a
a similar number in Europe,
more accurately carry through
HD production.
and will be offering full packthat workflow.”
“The design allows them to
ages for about €75,000, includDespite increasing the numhave 4,000 green pixels per line,
ing camera, recorder and post
ber of pixels on the sensor,
which creates a 4:2:2 sampling.
production kit.
compared to the F35, “we’ve
Beyer pattern sensors use
For post, Sony is working
managed to improve the per2:2:1 sampling. So, you have
with software vendors to add
formance by about two stops in
full luminance in the green
compliance with F65 Raw 4K
most areas,” says Lewis. “It’s
channel coupled with the
and HDCAM SR compression
been a huge jump in technolohigh resolution of the sensor.
for HD, and some software,
gy to create this sensor.” It
That creates a very wide
such as Colorfront On-Set
offers 14 stops of latitude, with
colour gamut, which they’ve
Dailies, is already available,
a base sensitivity of 800 ISO.
measured to be wider than
with more to come. The SDKs
The 8K pixels means that
film,” says Emmons.
will allow vendors to extract
it needs no debayering, with
“Because of the higher
the required resolution from
full 4K horizontal, vertical
resolution and improved
the raw file. Partners signed
and diagonal resolution. The
quality of the image, we expect
up to this workflow include
sensor will output HD, 2K, and
this camera to be the new
Adobe, AJA, Apple, Assimilate,
true 4K resolution today, but
camera of choice for feature
Avid, Blackmagic Design,
will go beyond 4K in future.
film production.”
Deluxe,
FilmLight,
The
Unlike other single sensor
Emmons is seeing more
Foundry and Quantel.
www.bandpro.com
cameras, it’s not a Beyer patowner/operators interested in
www.pro.sony.eu
tern sensor.
the F65, because they are
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Broadcast audio mic
with RØDE and HHB
RØDE’s heritage as an innovative microphone manufacturer and the popularity of
its NTG series culminated recently in the
development of the NTG-8 broadcastgrade long shotgun microphone. The
NTG-8, which was given its world debut at
IBC2011, is a broadcast-quality, long shotgun microphone that exhibits incredible
directionality across the entire frequency
range and offers enhanced LF response,
directivity and sensitivity. It has been optimised for recording high-quality audio for
film, television, sports and outdoor broadcasting or any professional application
where distance miking is required.
The RØDE NTG-8 embodies many of
the features of the NTG-3, including low
self-noise, natural sound without colouration both on and off axis, and RF bias
technology to ensure that it is almost completely water resistant and suitable for outdoor environments. Designed and manufactured in
Sydney, Australia, the NTG-8 provides a
super-cardioid polar pattern and a 40Hz20kHz frequency response in a 559mm x
19mm body that weighs 345g. It requires
48V Phantom Power and features a 3 pin
XLR balanced output, an improved
dynamic range and a Max SPL of 127dB
(A-weighted). HHB’s Director of Sales Martin
O’Donnell said, “The addition of the new
NTG-8 bolsters our product portfolio for
outside broadcast and location sound
recording by enabling us to offer a premium, broadcast-grade long shotgun microphone with a diverse range of applications
that is backed by RØDE’s engineering and
innovative product design. Like all of
RØDE’s products, the NTG-8 offers a
robust feature set and performance for a
price that its competitors will find difficult
to match.”
www.hhb.co.uk
38
know how you are going to back up the
originals. “You don’t have to have a PhD to
work out the camera, but you have to read
the manual and prepare.”
The workflow is “rather complicated
compared to the Alexa. Workflow is a big
thing for all these cameras,” he says.
The Alexa can record ProRes 422 on to
SxS cards, 10-20 minutes per card. Put it in
to a MacBook Pro and you can edit it
straight away in full quality. “Producers
and directors love that.”
Touch and go: The touchscreen
allows easy focus pulls
Epic shoots raw (R3D files), and even
though it is compressed it needs a powerful
computer to view it at full quality, and typically needs to be converted to edit it. “The
footage has to be treated by a serious
colourist to get the best out of it,” he says.
Although “the raw workflow is undeniably powerful. You can change things, like
white balance and the sensitivity of the
camera, but it doesn’t change what is going
on to the camera card, it just affects the
metadata — it’s done in a non-destructive
way.” This means that in post nothing is
locked in and can still be manipulated.
“Once you get used to it, it’s fantastic.”
Alexa can also record raw, but that is an
extra cost as it requires an external recorder,
so most productions don’t use it like that. In
ProRes with the Alexa, the camera settings,
like white balance, are baked in — although
they can be manipulated in post, there isn’t
the same latitude as in raw.
“A lot of clients like the raw workflow,
especially fashion clients, because they are
used to working with stills cameras that
work in a similar way,” he says.
“It’s a different way to look at cameras. The
danger is that cameramen leave it to others
to know what to do,” says Wiggins. “As the
cameras get more and more advanced, people
are going to have to be aware of what they are
doing in post. It’s important that everyone is
working off the same knowledge base. You have
to know what encoding you are using, etc.”
“A lot of software programmes, like
Avid, supported R3D natively up to 4K,”
it is once you go to 5K that the choice
becomes more limited, says Mark Lloyd,
Special Projects, Root6.
A lot of post production software still
has to be upgraded to work with Epic’s 5K
raw files. As far as mainstream editing
packages are concerned, it seems that only
the latest version of Premiere Pro can handle 5K files natively. The main way most
editors deal with it is to do a conversion,
possibly using Red’s free Redcine-X or The
Foundry’s Storm applications, and then
edit in Avid, Final Cut Pro or Edius.
Otherwise, the workflow is very similar
to the Red One, except the Epic only
records to SSDs and not Compact Flash
cards. “Like with the Red One, although
you could edit 4K, editors tend to convert
to a smaller, more edit-friendly format to
do the edit, then conform the R3D files.
The benefits of this are speed of editing
and reduced storage requirements,” he says.
“You could then conform in something like
DVS Clipster, which does support 5K.
“Given time, in the same way as with the
Red One, people will get used to it. In a year’s
time, encoding will be quicker, and it will be
used almost as regularly as the Alexa. It’s not
going to be a specialist bit of kit,” says Wiggins.
“New cameras are great for cameramen, but
the extra workflow is often a bigger issue.”
www.red.com
www.root6.com
www.somedia.tv
Bright Red: The modular Red
Scarlet can be set up cine style
Scarlet: Epic
features for less
By David Fox
Red Digital Cinema has been talking
about Scarlet, its lower-cost digital
cinema camera, for a long time, but it is
only now available. The Scarlet-X will
record 4K video from 1-30fps and
shoot stills in burst modes of up to
12fps at full 5K resolution, so that
professional photographers and cinematographers can simultaneously capture motion footage and stills.
Scarlet-X has a compact, modular
design, like the high-end Epic, and will
work with Epic accessories. It costs from
$9,750 for the Brain (sensor unit), but
requires other parts to function, such as
a PL mount ($2,000), SSD Module
($1,500), etc., making its realistic price
between $15,000 and $20,000 (competing directly with the likes of Canon’s
EOS C300 and Sony’s PMW-F3).
Lens mounts can be swapped easily
using Scarlet-X’s interchangeable
lens mount system, and Panavision,
Anamorphic, and Nikon lenses are also
compatible with the camera.
When Scarlet was promised initially,
it was supposed to have a 2/3-inch sensor and be about a third of the price
announced now, but a lot has changed
in the past few years. “A 2/3-inch sensor
is not big enough. The world has moved
past small sensors and low resolution,”
said Red’s founder, Jim Jannard.
“Think of Scarlet-X as Epic’s little
sister.” All Epic Modules will work on
Scarlet-X. “Everything in the Epic/
Scarlet system is interchangeable.”
It uses the Mysterium-X S35 sensor,
and has a data rate of up to 55Mbps
(440Mbps), recording Redcode Raw.
Epic costs a lot more ($58,000 for a
production kit), but lowering the data
rates and processing power (which will
also extend battery life), keeps Scarlet’s
price low. “ASICs that weren’t fast
enough for Epic, just became a gold
mine for Scarlet. This, and board component reduction, allows us to lower
the data rate throughput and significantly reduce our costs over volume,”
explained Jannard.
However, it does have consequences
for recording high dynamic range
shots, which it does at lower resolutions/frame rates than Epic, but that
could change. “We are working on a
future version of HDRx with modified
compression to enable this possibility.
It will be a firmware upgrade and free,”
said Jannard. HDRx can give it up to
18 stops of dynamic range.
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TVBE Jan P40-42 v2_TVBE_SEPT_P21_37_sports 11/01/2012 15:57 Page 40
TVBEU R O PE T H E B U S I N E S S C A S E
Mosart orchestrates
TV news production
What’s the story behind the
Norwegian company that claims to
be the Number One newscast
automation provider in Europe with
more than 70% market share?
Dick Hobbs looks at the Business
Case involved…
Norway’s state broadcaster NRK
had a monopoly on television
broadcasting until the 1980s, giving viewers the choice of just one
channel. Consumers, having seen
what was available in the rest of
Europe, built up political pressure
for change, and a tendering
process was developed for a competitive, commercial broadcaster.
One of the primary requirements for the new broadcaster
was that it should not be based
in the capital, Oslo. The bid was
won by a consortium that set up
TV2 in Bergen, on the west coast
of Norway. Bergen now brands
itself ‘the knowledge city’,
emphasising the strength of its
university and the associated
research parks.
“TV2 was set up by entrepreneurs, and that same spirit
prevails,” says John Kjellevold, a
senior engineer at the time of the
foundation of the company, and
now managing director of Mosart.
The channel went on air, from
its headquarters in the dockyard
district of Bergen, in 1992. By
2010 it was transmitting 13 channels over digital platforms, and
profitably generating annual revenues of €364 million.
The entrepreneurial spirit of
TV2 comes out most clearly in
its approach to its technology
requirements. It needed a weather
graphics system and nothing on
the market could provide the
combination of creativity and
automation sought, so it developed its own then spun the development team out into a commercial business. Vizrt now has its
headquarters in a building on the
next dock.
Similarly, when the Norwegian
government proposed digital terrestrial broadcasting, TV2 went
against the prevailing opinion
that the telco should run it.
Instead TV2 set up a joint venture
with NRK, Riks TV, to build and
run the transmission network.
Kjellevold ran the Riks TV
project, and when the DTT network was on air he looked for a
new challenge. TV2 management
was examining a digital newsroom. There was nothing on the
market that met their commercial
needs, so Kjellevold was asked to
develop a system in house, with
the prospect of turning it into
another product if it went well.
40
TV2: “Over the shifts, TV2 saved 14 man years by implementing
Mosart. That was the business case,” says John Kjellevold
“The innovation process starts
with a problem and the knowledge to solve it,” he explains. “If
you can then take the successful
solution and add some capital,
then you have a commercial product.” He emphasises the importance to the development of
knowledgeable people — those
who understand the practical
issues by coming from a broadcast background.
So the project started in 2002
by bringing together a team of
directors and editors to determine
just what would be needed. The
initial business case for TV2 was
economical: before Mosart its
news programmes operated with
five people in the gallery. With
Mosart automation there are just
two: the director, who drives the
programme through the Mosart
interface: and an operator they
call the “octopus” who monitors
the largely automated audio and
vision mixers, camera OCPs and
robotics, lighting board and in
her spare time acts as floor manager for guests in the studio.
If the octopus role looks like
an impossible task, I have
watched a flagship news programme from the gallery and in
practice it involves very little
hands-on activity. Indeed, the
programme I watched had the
usual newsroom headaches of
missing video packages and wildly over-running two ways with a
live reporter, but it was the
calmest gallery I have ever seen.
“Over the shifts, TV2 saved 14
man years by implementing
Mosart,” Kjellevold explains.
“That was the business case.”
Framework contract
The system first went on air for
news programmes on the main
channel in 2005 when programming was disrupted to cover the
death of Pope John Paul II. Its
success in streamlining news
operations was such that TV2’s
board decided to start a 24 hour
news channel: “an economically
dubious idea in a country of five
million people,” according to
Kjellevold, emphasising how
important the automation
would become.
TV2 Nyhetskanalen went on
air at the beginning of 2007, and
by May of the same year the
decision was taken to spin out
the newsroom automation as a
commercial business, Mosart
Medialab. The new company
became operational on 1 September of that year, and within 10
days had won its first contract, to
the unrelated TV2 in Denmark.
Other broadcasters, including
N24 in Germany and Sky in
Rome, soon followed.
A major step forward came in
2009 when Mosart successfully
won a framework contract from
the BBC. According to Kjellevold,
this was a long and somewhat
torturous process: “four presentations, each addressing 100 questions in precisely 90 minutes. It was
a lot of work and a lot of investment for a small company.
“You cannot just put a salesman
on this,” he adds. “It needs detailed
work by product managers.” So
why go through it? “We did not
think that there was a European
company that could compete, and
the American companies would not
want to invest in it.
“For us it was worthwhile in
the end. We are now sole supplier,
under the framework, for newsroom automation to the BBC for
four years. We already have four
installations in BBC West One
and four more at Salford Quays.”
Were the big name broadcasters
— Mosart supplies to ARD, SVT,
YLE and Al Jazeera as well as the
BBC and Sky — purely looking at
newsroom automation as a means
of cutting costs by cutting staff ?
Kjellevold saw much more than
simple economics.
“Flagship news programmes
like ARD Aktuell or BBC News at
Six rely on Mosart for the look
of the programme,” he explains.
“They use the functionality to
build predictable and repeatable
effects and complexity. We control
four servers, four graphics systems,
the whole of the vision mixer and
back wall graphics all at the same
time. We tell our customers that we
are not going to limit their broadcast look,” he adds. “We say ‘tell us
what you want to do and we will
automate it’ — or we fail.”
Surely that must lead to customisation, which makes the
product more costly and harder
to maintain. Kjellevold firmly
contradicts this. “It is one standard software product, continuously improving according to
strategic developments and client
broadcaster requirements,” he
says. “If a broadcaster has a
device that sits in the news studio
then we will develop a driver for it
because they have the right to
choose that piece of equipment.”
In fact, such a requirement
came up in the TV2 news studio
John Kjellevold: “We understand the
need to free up resources, add
production values and reduce stress”
in Bergen, where the designer
called for an extremely large back
wall display, at much higher resolution than could be driven
through an HD switcher. It is
powered by an Encore videowall
processor, which is under the
command of Mosart.
Pressure and jargon
The architecture of Mosart is that
it sits in the centre, orchestrating
the systems around it. The script
and running order will be built in
the newsroom computer, which
talks over MOS to Mosart.
Changes in the running order are
instantly reflected in Mosart, so
while the director in the gallery
has full control over the programme through the Mosart
interface, and the octopus can
take manual control of any or all
devices, in practice the programme is run from just one key:
F12 for take next event.
Mosart is also swapping metadata with asset management,
delivering as run logs and updating the database, for instance
with the BBC Jupiter system.
With a standardised software
system and interfaces to all the
common hardware, Kjellevold
suggests the time from contract
signature to on air can be as little
as eight or nine weeks. This
includes a period of what they
call show design, where the
Mosart project manager works
with super users in the broadcaster to build the templates that
define the look of the broadcasts.
User training follows, based on
the templates that have been developed so operators and support
staff are learning the way that their
own programmes will work, not
through theoretical exercises.
Mosart is now enjoying considerable success, and is looking to
expand its currently tiny workforce.
“TV2 is a good owner,” Kjellevold
says. “We are not seen as a cash
cow, but we are not seen as a star
getting an enormous amount of
cash. We do not need that: we can
grow with the market.”
Are there problems in being
owned by a broadcaster and selling to other broadcasters — NRK
in Norway now uses Mosart. He
sees this as a benefit rather than a
disadvantage. “Almost everyone
in Mosart has done the job for
real,” he says. “We understand the
pressures and the jargon.
“We understand the need to
free up resources, to add production values and to reduce stress,”
he adds. “We think reducing
stress is really important. We have
heard that using some of our
competitor systems is like riding a
wild horse. We concentrated on
reducing the need for communication, which means less shouting
— without limiting what you can
do right up to changing the item
in preview.
“Yes, Mosart changes the
workflow of how you make the
news,” Kjellevold concludes. “But
so far I have only heard that it
changes it in a good way.”
The No.1 show for professional AV and
electronic systems integration presented by
Meet. Greet. Network.
ISE 2012 attendees represent every link in the communications business value chain. With manufacturers,
distributors, integrators, specifiers and technology managers from over 100 countries walking the show floor,
you’re bound to meet new contacts to help you grow your business. If they’re industry people worth knowing,
you’ll find them at ISE 2012.
Platinum Sponsors:
www.iseurope.org
TVBE Jan P40-42 v2_TVBE_SEPT_P21_37_sports 11/01/2012 14:14 Page 42
UltraViolet launches into Europe — while the headache of fragmented online
video delivery could be nearing the end, reports Adrian Pennington
An UltraViolet breakthrough for
digital entertainment in Europe
A new initiative to grow the market for electronic sellthrough of
film and TV content has launched
but its success rests on the
endorsement of a wide community of service providers, retailers
and payTV operators.
The UK has become the second
territory, following the US, to
launch digital rights library system
UltraViolet. Backed by the Digital
Entertainment Content Ecosystem
(DECE), a consortia which
includes the Hollywood studios
(bar Disney) and 70 other technology providers, consumer device
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Argosy
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Avid
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Blackmagic
Design
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Broadcast
Video Expo
21
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IFC
Digital Rapids
34
DVB
IBC
Evertz
10
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Harris
23
IBC
26
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34
Mediagenix
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Miranda
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Murraypro
32,36,OBC Playbox
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8
SSL
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Studer
38
TV Logic
42
makers, entertainment retailers
and video service providers,
UltraViolet is an attempt to unify
the access which consumers have
to digital content across devices.
In the US its commercial rollout began in October with Warner
Bros. Home Entertainment, Sony
Pictures Home Entertainment and
Universal Pictures announcing
initial UV-enabled titles. Warner
has now stated that all of its releases in the UK will have free streaming rights bundled into the purchase of the physical disc.
In addition, 21 companies have
acquired licensees to offer UltraViolet
products and services. These include
NBCUniversal, Samsung, Sony,
Fox and Intel, with hints from
DECE that others have signed.
Early days it may be, but when
Warner released its first UV-enabled
title Final Destination 5 (26 December) consumers were only able to
stream it from devices carrying the
Warner-owned movie-based social
network service Flixster.
DECE signatory Tesco has
launched its own digital locker
with Blinkbox, the online movie
service it majority owns. Tesco
customers who purchase select
DVDs and Blu-ray discs gain free
access to a digital copy on the
Blinkbox portal.
According to DECE, “We
cannot speak for Tesco’s plans, but
we understand they plan on
launching UltraViolet later this
year. The UltraViolet concept
assumes and encourages retailers
and others to maintain their own
flow of innovation. We believe
that consumers will benefit from
UltraViolet’s ability to ‘connect
the clouds’ — meaning they will be
able to access their content from a
variety of retailers/service providers
and devices in one central location
under the UltraViolet umbrella.”
The UV licensee list in the UK
is expected to grow as roll-out
gathers pace in 2012 with rights
initially introduced via Blu-ray
and DVD discs, but later through
online retailers or apps for download and streaming.
According to DECE General
Manager Mark Teitell, “consumers are demanding a more
advanced and open alternative to
the closed video distribution systems being offered today. The UK
launch of UltraViolet represents
another key step in development.”
Apple still lies outside the UV
project, but Teitell dismisses these
concerns: “the market for physical
film and TV media is 18 or 19 times
Jean-Marc Racine: “The payTV industry … has shifted
from smartcard protection to buying security as a service”
Thierry Fautier: “We now only
need to encode, store, and
transport a single file”
size that of the electronic one.
Nobody’s business is healthy and
that includes Apple — it has a very
healthy music business, but it is not
satisfied with its business selling
movies and TV shows.”
He adds, “consumers have
been holding back on making digital collections because they lack
the freedom to watch their content
on any device they own, and the
confidence in the longevity of
their purchase. UltraViolet gives
the choice, freedom and confidence in content ownership that
has historically been lacking.”
There will be further hurdles too,
not least to create an end-to-end
ecosystem which will securely stream
content to multiple consumer electronics devices — across Europe’s
non-homogeneous market.
“DECE has pre-selected five
digital rights management systems
(from Adobe, Marlin, Google,
Microsoft, and the Open Mobile
Alliance) so that CE vendors and
content service providers can create
security applicable to different
devices and platforms,” says JeanMarc Racine, managing partner
at digital media consultancy
Farncombe. “Only time will tell if
UltraViolet will be able to update
rights propagated to millions of
devices at the same time as staving
off the piracy that crippled the
music industry.
“The payTV industry learned
the hard way regarding piracy and
has shifted from smartcard protection to buying security as a service
like an insurance,” he says. “Updating that as a payTV provider
where you own the box and the
network is one thing: updating that
in a retail environment is another.”
Racine believes that UltraViolet
will be of benefit to consumers
“since the idea of owning content
and accessing it online on all your
devices has value,” he says. “It will
be interesting to see how it works
with the existing ecosystem because
the rights to content that UV offers
is still at peak value — after theatrical release but before VoD.”
MPEG-DASH from
promise to practice
Arguably more important to the
online video industry than
UltraViolet, but a happy consequence of its formation, are
moves to specify a delivery format
that enables interoperability
between different servers and
clients from various vendors.
That Holy Grail has been long
sought of course but 2012 may
witness a serious breakthrough —
provided Apple comes on board.
Momentum toward a single
adaptive streaming file format has
gained ground since a common file
format (CFF) for downloads was
agreed by DECE to making download functionality consistent across
all UltraViolet retailers. At an
ISO meeting in Geneva last
December MPEG Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP —
DASH — was ratified as a standard.
MPEG-DASH has the potential
to embrace existing proprietary
adaptive streaming technologies such
as Apple’s HTTP Live Streaming,
Adobe’s Dynamic Streaming and
Microsoft’s Smooth Streaming.
Adaptive streaming is based on
HTTP and adjusts the quality of a
video stream according to the user’s
bandwidth and CPU capacity.
Explains Duncan Potter,
CMO, Edgeware, “Today multiple
flavours of HTTP adaptive bitrate
technology are being used.
Technically the differences are
small, but still large enough to
require multiple versions of each
content and also multiple versions
of the head-end infrastructure in
order to deliver these formats.
“Since in most cases each client
device type only supports one, or
possibly two, of these formats, any
operator that wants to reach a
broad range of client devices must
implement support for multiple formats. Having a single format that
can reach all devices will greatly
simplify and lower the cost of operation of any multi-screen service.”
He adds, “By streamlining the
delivery and content infrastructure,
and making it less client aware, will
make it easier and cheaper for operators to offer multi-screen services
with broad reach.”
Teitell says DECE is mindful of
a source file for streaming. “Many
of our members are playing important roles in developing MPEGDASH and as a group further down
the track we are looking at how we
should approach streaming, with a
mindset that works with standards
and doesn’t try to invent new ones.”
Unlike previous attempts to create an interoperable format, this time
Apple, Microsoft and Adobe plus
Netflix, Qualcomm, Harmonic and
Cisco have participated in development. However, while Microsoft has
indicated that it will support the
standard in practice, neither Adobe
nor Apple has yet committed to do
the same. “Until DASH is backed by
these two major players, it will gain
little traction in the market,” believes
Yann Courqueux, CMO, Netgem.
A DASH Promoters Group
(DASH-PG) has been formed to
develop DASH across mobile,
broadcast, internet and connected
devices — with the EBU the first
broadcast organisation to join.
More members are expected to
come from the HbbTV community,
since HbbTV 1.5 will specify MPEGDASH for Connected TVs.

January 2012

Transcription

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