FEED Winter 2023 Newsletter

“WE ARE SELLING AN AI PRODUCT, BUT THE HUMANTOUCH IS STILL IMPORTANT TO GETTHE RESULTS THAT ARE NEEDED”

VERITY BUTLER: What makes automation key to a modern production recipe?

SIMON BROWNE: I’ve been in this business for a long time, and intercom has been automated pretty much from day one. A lot of what we do, particularly with broadcast, is the management of intercom lines; audio and video out to remote sites have very often been automated and bundled up together. That means everything gets controlled at once – it’s a time simplification operation. PAUL CHARLESTON: For me, automation really builds into three tiers. One is a bit of a swear word term in the broadcast industry: enterprise service bus; the concept that you can deconstruct entire operations and define every decision point – break off everything that’s happened. Certainly in the past we have delivered systems such as IBM Arema – enterprise orchestrators with huge end-to-end processes that describe every part of the content supply chain. Then you’ve got product automation, which is what Simon’s

talking about. The third tier, which is what really interests us as consultants, is that we partner with specialist companies providing software solutions such as Qibb and a number of other automation providers who provide this specific middleware piece as a standalone function, saying that ‘product development of automation is fantastic, but you have to wait for the solutions provider to develop exactly what you want, so why not simply handle that yourself’. Whether that’s bringing in AI, bringing in packaging – bringing in all the ideas required to be done so that there is only a single button which needs to be pressed. ROSS TANNER: I originally come from an editorial background – I was a TV producer. One thing I always play back to is that although the AI automation we have with Magnifi can offer you so much more, a human lens will always be important. At Magnifi, when we are providing endless amounts of

highlights clips, it’s much more about being able to provide more across the various platforms we are delivering it to, rather than replacing operators. Even though we are selling an AI product, the human touch is still hugely important to get the results the broadcasters need. PETER ABECASSIS: Ross Video’s vision of automation is to make that connection between the creative side and the actual reality of what goes onto the TV screen at the end of the chain. Whatever you want to be able to create, it can be very complicated. You have lights, audio mixers that need to switch in and out, graphics, camera movements and all the rest of it. You need people that can control all of that. Automation gives the ability to make sure that each one of those happen the exact same way every night, because of that complex look. It’s not about replacing, it’s about improving consistency to get a polished, professional look.

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