VERITY BUTLER: Can you offer some examples of cutting-edge automation technology?
over to the next control room and then reassign themselves. We have aided that to a certain extent with our login operation. That means if somebody can go to the panel, select their role and then log in, I think that’s something which is reasonably universal in other technologies too. But the reassignment controls of studio floors has bugged broadcasters for many years because it’s extremely complicated to do. I’m seeing more of that happen nowadays with ease, especially with self-login. PETER ABECASSIS: I’ll echo almost exactly what Simon just said, in that we’ve been working a lot on what we call the back-of-house engineering function. It’s not so much about automating specific devices like cameras and switchers, which we’ve done a lot of, it’s more about having flexible production spaces, like Simon was saying. Being able to dynamically allocate devices, orchestrate them and use them in different ways and reprogram them – have a control room being used to produce a show upfront and then suddenly realise we’ve got to use a different control room to actually run it. Being able to deal with that by loading it up to
the server and downloading it to the control room, then you’re ready to go in under three minutes. PAUL CHARLESTON: I would say that it’s all of them. Now that almost everything is API-controlled, able to communicate and built with an architecture that allows it all to interconnect, automation is now about what you can achieve with the technology. Whether it’s the examples that Peter and Simon are talking about, where you can go to any system, press a button and have a bunch of stuff happen; whether it’s rerouting, network orchestration, software- defined processes – it all happens from a single button press. But I think the one I like the most is more towards Ross’ point of view, which is AI. I saw a demonstration at IBC that took a half-an-hour feed, went to one AI engine, found the important points and created markers from that. But then, with a single button press, that was pushing out to a system which would translate into six different languages of that speech, create an AI presenter in those languages with the right localisation of personalisation. That for me is where automation truly hits that sweet spot.
ROSS TANNER: One thing I’ve noticed for those readers who enjoy their cricket, the ICC Cricket World Cup is happening in India currently. They announced beforehand that they’re going to do the entire 48 matches in a 9:16 output. While they can see those broadcasts with all the usual outputs globally, they will be offering a second package to their licensees into their digital platforms, which will have it in 9:16. This is an exciting leap where it offers different experiences for those that are consuming online. SIMON BROWNE: The one I’ve been most impressed with in my world is where you move control rooms and reassign studios to control rooms. This sounds simple, but is actually incredibly complicated. But everything – the monitors, the video switch, the audio systems, the intercom, the panels – gets changed over if, for example, the control room switcher goes down. They will run
“AUTOMATING PLAY-BY-PLAY EVENT DATA IS GOINGTO BE SOMETHING MASSIVE FOR THE INDUSTRY”
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