FEED Issue 07

Exploring the future of media technology

BUILDING BRANDS HOSPITAL TV FOR KIDS GENIUS INTERVIEW UHD ON DEMAND NORDIC TV SUMMIT

Immersive sound comes to mobile

3 WELCOME

The evolution of YouTube has proved that people will happily watch video of the worst quality as long as the subject is engaging. But problems with sound will get them clicking to the next thing faster than you can say “intermodulation distortion”.

EDITORIAL EDITOR Neal Romanek +44 (0) 1223 492246 nealromanek@bright-publishing.com

CONTRIBUTORS Ann-Marie Corvin Heather McLean Adrian Pennington Phil Rhodes David Davies

Maybe it’s because we humans are used to looking through messy forest thickets to find our food, but we seem able to cope with imperfect video – as long as it’s consistently imperfect. But bad audio shouts “trouble”. It’s an almost visceral reaction to turn away from it. And that probably goes back to nature too – soothe that screaming baby, flee from that snarling homotherium, think twice before sticking your hand into that log full of bees. Sound makes us react instinctively and automatically. It’s amazing then that there is a large mass of popular content producers out there who still don’t seem to care about proper placement of mics (if external mics are used at all) and with audio mixes (if they are mixing it at all) that seem to be optimised for some other, non-human species. In this issue we take our first look at some of the new technologies around sound, including advances in immersive audio which can turn your mobile device into a rival for a 5.1 living room set-up. Look for more audio focus in future issues of FEED , when we’ll cover new audio tech, offer tips and tricks for better sound, and look at audio-based content, including podcasting and radio. Hey, can you guess what the waveform on our cover is? NEAL ROMANEK, EDITOR

SENIOR SUB EDITOR Lisa Clatworthy SUB EDITORS Siobhan Godwood, Felicity Evans ADVERTISING SALES DIRECTOR Matt Snow +44 (0) 1223 499453 mattsnow@bright-publishing.com KEY ACCOUNTS Chris Jacobs +44 (0) 1223 499463 chrisjacobs@bright-publishing.com

DESIGN DESIGN DIRECTOR Andy Jennings DESIGN MANAGER Alan Gray DESIGNERS

Laura Bryant, Lucy Woolcomb, Man-Wai Wong, Flo Thomas, Mark George PUBLISHING MANAGING DIRECTORS Andy Brogden & Matt Pluck

nealromanek@bright-publishing.com @rabbitandcrow @nromanek

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64 HAPPENING

6 NEWSFEED

News from around the streaming world

The Nordic TV Summit brings the industry together for fun, food and fjords

12 STREAMPUNK TOOL OF THE MONTH A new app tries to bring a complete production workflow to iPhone 16 YOUR TAKE – LIVE OTT

66 START-UP ALLEY

Profiles of the hottest new media tech companies

70 FUTURE SHOCK

Serving tennis with AI

Net Insight co-founder Per Lindgren looks at the possibilities and challenges of live OTT video

BUILDING BRANDS 28 BUYINGWITH BARCLAYCARD Groovy Gecko makes banking beautiful with a month-long online video campaign

22 DEEP AUDIO

Immersive audio technology is about ready to hit bit – and it’s biggest splash may be on mobile

46 HEALING TV

A studio in a Minnesota children’s hospital entertains an audience who needs it most

34 GENIUS INTERVIEW

After building up LADBible and Vice, Stephen Mai turns to an online hub for alternative club culture

50 XTREME

It’s all UHD all the time at video on demand network Insight TV

44 THE LIVE LIFE

58 ROUND TABLE

UK production company Trickbox TV takes on corporate clients

This month we take stock of professional organisations and trade bodies

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BREAKING NEWS FROM THE STREAMING SECTOR

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CONTROVERSIAL EU COPYRIGHT DIRECTIVE PASSES

The European Parliament has voted to approve Articles 11 and 13 of the EU Copyright Directive. Proposed by the European Commission in September 2016 as part of Europe’s Digital Single Market strategy, the Copyright Directive intends to reform European copyright laws. After the vote, Andrus Ansip, Vice President for the Digital Single Market, and Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, said in a joint statement: “Our aim for this reform is to bring tangible benefits for EU citizens, researchers, educators, writers, artists, press and cultural heritage institutions and to open up the potential for more creativity and content by clarifying the rules and making them fit for the digital world. At the same time, we aim to safeguard free speech and ensure that online platforms – including 7000 European online platforms – can develop new and innovative offers and business models.”

The most significant part of the legislation, Articles 11 and 13, would require sites to pay publishers for using pieces of content and make content platforms liable for copyright infringements committed by their users. Supporters of the Directive assert that it would force internet giants such as Google, Facebook and YouTube to pay artists, news organisations and publishers for content that is uploaded to their platforms. Critics have described Article 11 as a “link tax” that will force platforms to pay if they want to use snippets of content linking to other sites, while Article 13 has been criticised as a “meme ban”, which would force removal of any unlicensed copyrighted content or imagery from any platform and lead to unprecedented filtering of uploaded content. The legislation has received wide support from film studios, big publishers

and major music labels, but has been strongly resisted by big media platforms like Google and Facebook, as well as the Wikimedia Foundation and GitHub. In the wake of the vote, music rights association ASCAP tweeted: “This a big deal. The European Parliament has approved passage of the #CopyrightDirective, which will give give (sic) music creators greater protection and fair compensation in the digital age” Writer and activist Cory Doctorow tweeted: “The day this goes into effect will be the last day that independent photogs can operate. Without a rights-clearance house behind you, you won’t be able to post any street scenes: riots, parades, stock, police brutality, etc to any platform.” The final version of the legislation still needs to be negotiated with the European commission and EU member states before becoming law. The net vote will take place in January 2019.

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7 NEWSFEED Updates & upgrades

VR tech company Jaunt has acquired Teleporter from augmented and virtual reality company Personify. Teleprompter is a volumetric streaming software system that captures, processes and streams augmented reality assets in real time. Jaunt has been working on its own volumetric research for its Jaunt XR Platform, a b2b service for distributing augmented, virtual and mixed reality assets. It’s hoped the Teleprompter acquisition will accelerate Jaunt’s ability to stream lifelike augmented reality experiences in real time. The team at Jaunt are very much looking forward to the new input. JAUNT TELEPORTER LiveU has released a new HEVC- enabled field unit. The new LU300 HEVC field unit marks the last of its broadcast- grade units to be transitioned to HEVC- capable. The unit is aimed at customers requiring the mobility of a smaller unit. The LU300 joins the LU600 high- end backpack and LU610 rackmount 1U encoder in LiveU’s hardware-based HEVC line-up. The unit weighs just over 900 grams and is available in a pouch or camera-mount configuration. The LU300 bonds up to six connections – two LTE Advanced internal modems, two external modems, WiFi and LAN – and includes a three-hour internal battery. The LU300 can also serve as a standalone video encoder or be used as a LiveU DataBridge mobile hotspot for general connectivity in the field. The LU300 offers enlarged display, improved resolution and a new JOG controller, as well as a stronger CPU for faster file upload. The unit can be locally or remotely managed, using LiveU Central, the LIVEU GOES ALL IN FOR HEVC

“The addition of Personify’s Teleporter team and technology allows us to increase the speed and scope of our research and development as we move further into the extended reality arena with the Jaunt XR Platform at the core of

our business,” said Arthur van Hoff, Jaunt CTO and Founder. Simon Venshtain, Personify CTO, will become Director of Research, reporting to van Hoff and leading the new Chicago-based team.

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8 NEWSFEED Updates & upgrades

Facebook has launched Watch, its new video on demand platform, in countries around the world after a one-year trial in the US. Monetised primarily through pre- roll advertising, Facebook Watch content includes short-form and news content made in association with major media companies. BBC News has just launched a new show Cut Through and interactive elements around online games and audience participation. Watch Parties can be built around different types of content and interests, using video to generate conversation or social connections. FACEBOOK WATCH GOES GLOBAL US CONCERNED ABOUT “DEEP FAKES” US lawmakers have registered concern about the security implications of “deep fakes”, completely artificial but convincing video and audio representations of real people. Daniel R. Coats, US Director of and the public about the implications of new technologies that allow malicious actors to fabricate audio, video and still images.” foreign intelligence services or foreign individuals could use deep fake technology to harm United States the Noise on the platform. Watch has also developed a raft of scripted series including teen drama SKAM Austin and, most recently, Sorry For Your Loss , a half-hour episodic drama. Facebook is looking at shaping the Watch viewing experience to play to its social strengths with Watch Parties, which allow people to watch and comment on shows together in real time,

national security interests”, a description of any current use of the technology by foreign interests, and recommendations on how to counter the malicious use of deep fake technologies. You can read FEED’s feature article on deep fakes in our August magazine.

The letters goes on to say: “By blurring the line between fact and fictions, deep fake technology could undermine public trust in recorded images and videos as objective depictions of reality.” The representatives have requested an assessment of “how foreign governments,

National Intelligence, received a letter from members of Congress Adam Schiff, Stephanie Murphy and Carlos Carbelo requesting that the US intelligence community deliver “report to Congress

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10 NEWSFEED Updates & upgrades

NEW IPHONE TIME AGAIN

Apple has unveiled the latest iPhone – three iPhones, to be exact – at its Cupertino headquarters. The iPhone Xs, the iPhone Xs Max and the iPhone XR. This year’s event was mobile-device focused, with no new computer hardware announcements. The 5.8-inch iPhone Xs and 6.5-inch iPhone Xs Max both feature Super Retina displays, a faster and improved dual camera system and a seven-nanometer chip – the A12 Bionic chip with next-generation Neural Engine. The two phones also feature faster face ID, wider stereo sound and dual SIM capacity. The phones feature a 12-megapixel dual camera system with dual optical image stabilisation and 2x optical zoom. The phones’ new sensor claims twice the speed of previous versions.

Advanced depth segmentation in portrait mode enables better portraits with improved bokeh. New depth control allows users to dynamically adjust the depth-of- field in the Photos app both in a real time preview and post-capture. Portrait mode with depth control is also available on the TrueDepth camera for selfies, which includes Memoji and faster face tracking support for third-party ARKit apps. The phones’ Super Retina displays support Dolby Vision and HDR10, and have iOS system-wide colour management. The two phones claim a million-to-one contrast ratio and 60 percent greater dynamic range in HDR photos.

features a six-core fusion architecture – with two performance cores that are up to 15% faster than previous versions; four efficiency cores that are up to 50% more efficient; and a four-core GPU that is up to 50% faster. The phone also boasts an eight-core Neural Engine that can handle five trillion operations per second, compared to the A11 bionic processor’s 600 billion. The iPhone Xs and iPhone Xs Max feature splash and water resistance of IP68 for up to two metres for 30 minutes and protection against everyday spills. iPhone Xs and iPhone Xs Max will be available in 64GB, 256GB and 512GB capacity models in space grey, silver and a new gold finish, starting at $999 and $1,099 respectively.

BIONIC The Apple-designed A12 Bionic chip

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11 NEWSFEED Updates & upgrades

IPHONE XR Apple also introduces the cheaper iPhone XR, which sports a 6.1-inch LCD display and more durable glass. The new Liquid Retina display claims to be “the most colour accurate in the industry”. The phone includes a 12-megapixel f/1.8 aperture wide-angle lens. It lacks a second rear camera, but includes the A12 Bionic chip and Neural Engine. IOS 12 Apple also launched a new version of its iOS system. iOS12 introduces new AR experiences and Animoji and Memoji animations. The OS includes a Screen Time feature which “helps customers understand and take control of the time they spend interacting with their iOS devices”.

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STREAMPUNK 12 CTpro

CTpro is trying to create an all-in-one production tool for iOS. Designed from scratch for a real world production team, the app aims to start an iPhone production revolution

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13 STREAMPUNK CTpro

RIGHT FROM THE SENSOR CTpro aims to be a complete production workflow for iOS devices. With camera, editing and streaming tools combined in one app, the company hopes it will be widely adopted by professionals requiring low-friction, fast-turnound tools. The app is closely integrated with Apple hardware and produces higher quality images with raw data directly from the camera sensor

here is an increasing number of attempts at serious iPhone production tools – a few are useful, but the majority don’t

do titling. When it’s done, you can publish to your TV station either using FTP protocol with the built-in FTP server or publish it on social networks, or you can do live streaming from right from the phone.” “Because it’s on a small device using two fingers, we had to find a smart interface to make it all possible on a phone. What we discovered is that once you are used to doing it on a phone, you will never go back to the traditional tools. It’s amazing.” The product is first aimed at professional content makers, including TV stations and press. But there is a second tier of users which include a wide anyone who needs to shoot and publish high-quality video content with a quick turnaround and a minimum of technological friction. These include communications and marketing teams, corporates and government organisations. Prior to rolling it out widely, Samimi’s reporters and production teams had been using the early version of the app for three years. Another year was taken to fine tune and prepare the app for commercial distribution by an international team of 12 developers. The app is currently being trialled among a number of French TV stations, producers and freelancers. The company has also

export to Final Cut Pro X. Live streaming, with automatic bandwidth management, is also included, as well as live playout with switching between pre-recorded clips and cameras. YOU’LL NEVER GO BACK “CTpro is not only a camera, it’s a fully integrated and comprehensive workflow,” Baudet points out. “Within the app, you can shoot, edit your footage with frame accuracy and B-rolls, mix it with voice over, and then HOW IS IT POSSIBLE THAT THE PICTURE QUALITY COMING OUT OF IT IS SO IMPRESSIVELY BETTER THAN THE NATIVE CAMERA?

seem to be able to balance ease of use with professional power to be widely adopted. CTpro hopes they have created the breakthrough tool for iPhone-based production. The app, available only for iOS, was developed – and built – by Bertrand Samimi, owner of a local TV station in Saint-Quentin, France as a solution for his employees. “He decided to build a tool by himself for himself,” explains Philippe Baudet, CTpro’s global sales and distribution manager. “It’s a tool that’s been designed by a guy for his own crew and not for commercialisation. But we found the tool was so cool that it should go beyond his own company.” CTpro bills itself as a Mobile Video Suite and features tools for shooting, editing and live streaming from an iOS device. The app permits shooting in either 25 or 30fps HD using either HEVC or H.264 codecs in real time. Professional features such as Zebra, colour waveform, scalable vectorscope and an image stabiliser are built in. The app also comes with its own self- contained picture and audio editor with easy

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STREAMPUNK 14 CTpro

CUT UP The CTpro app manages to squeeze a wealth of sophisticated editing tools into an iPhone interface

IT IS POWERFULLY CLOSE TO THE HARDWARE

had interest from schools who can buy licenses for the software, rather than having to buy hardware for their students to use. BEYOND THE API “We just had a report back from a very big French company which is using the app,” says CTpro’s Baudet, “and they asked, How is it possible that the picture quality coming out of it is so impressively better than the native camera?” CTpro’s high picture quality is the result of the app’s bypassing the iOS API of framework, which is code that’s designed to simplify developing for iOS. Instead, CTpro takes the information right from the camera sensor and converts it in real time using the YUV colour space, also used in the Rec. 709 colour specification for HDTV. The latest version of the app has the capacity for three video overlay tracks – for

titles, graphic, and subtitles – instead of one and includes animation options on the lower third of frame. The upgrade also has full support for Bluetooth audio, meaning users will be able to use any Bluetooth microphones. CTpro’s live-streaming functionality also offers the cool feature of being able to play out to pre-edited material in the middle of a live stream, switching back and forth between a live feed from camera to pre- recorded material as desired. Another addition is integration with the Wowza CDN service. This can allow multiple users to broadcast directly and simultaneously to multiple social media or streaming services. CLOSE TO THE HARDWARE CTpro received its official international launch this month at IBC2018 in

Amsterdam. This release featured a number of new features. The question of whether or not to develop and release a version for Android has been repeatedly asked, but the developers are convinced that an Android development would be a step down. “It is powerfully close to the hardware,” says Baudet. “Android is only an operating system, running on 25,000 different devices. We wouldn’t be able to have control of the hardware and know how it would run on the hardware. “A Bentley ad was just shot on the iPhone, and Stephen Soderbergh made a feature film on the iPhone and said he would never use another camera again. It’s just the beginning, and we’re sure about the future of this, because there are so many advantages. The best camera is the one you have in your pocket.”

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16 YOUR TAKE Live OTT

GETTING

RIGHT One driver for the increase in live OTT viewing the last two years is the huge rise of social broadcasting. Both Twitter and Facebook have been pushing their ‘live’ functionality, which is increasingly becoming the first place that many fans, especially younger ones, go to watch the action. Amazon Prime also entered the live arena securing both NFL Thursday Night Football games and ATP tennis rights for 2019. In addition, YouTube Live struck a deal to live-stream the UEFA Champions League finals in partnership with BT Sport. Combining live sports and social interaction makes a lot of sense. Social media plays a significant part in consumers’ lives, and sharing content and experiences is a natural part of a live TV viewing, especially for the younger generation.

Words by Per Lindgren, Co-Founder of Net Insight

The next frontier for OTT video is live streaming – but we need to iron out a few problems first

Hulu and Sling TV but also by giants such as Amazon, Facebook and Netflix. In addition, large content owners such as Disney, HBO and Formula 1 have announced new direct- to-consumer OTT strategies. Sports has long been the last bastion where people have continued to watch live content on their TVs. However, there is no doubt that OTT platforms are winning ground also for live and linear content, including sports. ABI Research forecasted in January 2017 that live linear OTT services would grow from $1 billion in 2016 to $7 billion in 2021, a CAGR of 46,7%, and Ovum stated that subscription OTT services that are driven by linear streaming, as opposed to library catalogues, are now the fastest growing segment of the online video market.

PER LINDGREN: Overcoming hurdles will clear the way for OTT video to tackle live- streaming of sports events

018 was a big sports event year with both the Winter Olympics and FIFA 2018, and this has helped further boost Live OTT viewing. OTT streaming is transforming traditional TV business models, but it is also starting to change the viewing experience and therefore the viewing behaviour. This will have a deep impact on the media business the coming years. The changes in the media market landscape have not escaped anyone. Traditional broadcasters are not only being challenged by new OTT players such as

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17 YOUR TAKE Live OTT

LISTENING TO FANS Sports federations and content owners have begun listening to fans who have said they want to be closer to the action, the stats and the track experience. When content owners such as Liberty Media have announced their new direct-to-consumer strategy, they have expressed that they will not only use OTT distribution for providing a more agile way of watching TV everywhere but also use it to offer a new, more engaging, social and immersive user experience. OTT provides the possibility to offer new types of content, such as driver and pit lane cams, different audio, new camera angles and much more user interactivity and statistics. This transforms the live sport experience from a lean-back, passive spectator activity to a lean-in, engaged experience. The viewer thus becomes the producer, choosing to follow their favourite athletes, choosing their camera angles. However, live OTT video has been challenged with both scalability issues

and the need to solve the delay and sync problems in live OTT distribution platforms. Especially for sports, OTT delays of 20- 45 seconds behind the live action have created a problem – no one wants to hear their neighbours scream or receive a text message about a goal before they see it on their own screen. In addition to potential spoiler effects, OTT delay also prevents user interactivity. This has been hindering progress, and ultimately the monetisation, of new live OTT content. However, there are now new live OTT video solutions on the market addressing these issues and enabling the enhanced live viewing experience can be provided. Live OTT technologies also open up opportunities for content owners and rights holders to monetise more of their existing content, by complementing the broadcast experience with a live second screen experience. Excellent examples are driver/ player cams, 360° camera viewing, or just the ability to follow a favourite athlete or

team during the Olympics, all in sync with the normal broadcast. This content thus complements the lean-back experience on the big screen. FINDING REVENUE The big live events generate huge amounts of TV ad revenue. NBC revealed that the Superbowl alone generated close to half a billion dollars in ad revenue. This ad revenue has not been easily transferred to online and OTT streaming, even though it holds the promise of personalised advertisement. Due to immaturity in monitoring tools and challenges with visibility and ad blocking, OTT is still struggling with ad monetisation. New server-side ad insertion technology, coupled with better and reliable visibility and monitoring tools, will start to change this. In addition, the live second screen experience opens up a secondary path of monetisation both from subscription and new ad channels. There are also enhancements to dynamic product placement and new interactive sponsor opportunities in the second screen. This year is likely to be seen as the time when these new user experiences and business models started to finally take hold in the market, but this is still only the beginning of a larger transformation.

COMBINING LIVE SPORTS AND SOCIAL INTERACTION MAKES A LOT OF SENSE

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18 ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE AWS Elemental

The marriage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle was the platform for Sky’s trial of a new AI-driven app for identifying guests Something new AT THE ROYALWEDDING

SKY HAS ALWAYS TRIED TO PUSH THE ENVELOPE IN TV TECHNOLOGY WHO’SWHO? The Sky News Royal Wedding: Who’s Who Live application was powered by machine-learning enhanced video. The live-streaming experience gave users an insider’s look at guest arrivals, with the machine-learning infrastructure to detect guests in real time as they appeared on screen. The app offered users a steady stream of facts and insights about each arriving guest, including their connections to the royal couple and was used by half a million people in more than 200 countries via mobile devices and web browsers. A video-on-demand version was published after the wedding. It allowed users to navigate the roster of guests with integrated pause, rewind and restart. Sky News designed and built its machine-learning functionality in only three months. The team built the service using cloud infrastructure, for speed of development and to assure access to the scalable machine-learning capabilities essential to the app’s core functionality of real-time guest identification.

udiences love a love story, especially one that ends in a wedding. In May, one young couple’s nuptials became the

The project combined cloud video infrastructure from AWS with GrayMeta’s data analysis platform and UI Centric’s interactive UI design. Amazon’s Rekognition video and image analysis service was used for the real-time identification of celebrities and metadata tagging with related information, integrating a user experience in collaboration with UI Centric. Rekognition allows users to add image and video analysis to applications by providing image or video to the Rekognition API. The service can identify objects,

UK’s biggest media event. The excitement around the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle extended well beyond the UK – almost 40 million Americans watched the coverage. And the TV viewing figures for the marriage of Harry’s older brother, William, and Kate Middleton in 2011 were even larger. A royal wedding is guaranteed to bring in viewers. Unlike a sporting event whose broadcast rights might be carefully licensed for each territory, a public spectacle like this year’s royal wedding allows multiple broadcasters to compete for a slice of the viewership pie. The competition forces each broadcaster to up the ante in terms of quality and innovation. Sky has always tried to push the envelope in TV technology. The company was an early pioneer of 3DTV and though the format never caught on with viewers, Sky’s research in production and distribution had a ripple effect throughout the industry. It is now looking at HDR content, as well as increasing its 4K offerings, and has announced plans to create a new Innovation Centre at its Osterley, London campus which will be the home of its new Get into Tech for Young Women programme. For the marriage of Harry and Meghan, Sky News leveraged the power of artificial intelligence to create a live-streaming app which allowed viewers to identify the wedding guests and participants in real time.

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19 ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE AWS Elemental

people, text, scenes and activities, or even detect flagged or inappropriate content. The cloud-based tool also provides accurate facial analysis and recognition. CAPTURING THE GUESTS A video feed from an outside broadcast van located near Windsor Castle’s St George’s Chapel captured faces of arriving guests and fed the raw signal to an AWS Elemental Live small form-factor appliance located nearby, which started the real-time ingest into the cloud-based workflow. Video processing was handled with the AWS Elemental MediaLive service. The AWS Elemental MediaPackage integrated digital rights management for secured distribution over the Amazon CloudFront content delivery network. Sky News also used the AWS Elemental MediaPackage service for live-to-VOD applications such as catch‑up TV. The Amazon CloudFront content delivery network was used to unify the content for faster distribution to viewers. The enhanced video and metadata were delivered to the front-end application and video player designed and developed by UI Centric specifically for this application. ROYAL ROI Information-rich content like that provided by Sky’s Who’s Who Live app will become increasingly common – even essential – for providers and broadcasters looking to capture more eyeballs. It’s not hard to imagine a service or app that tells you not only who is present at an event, but whose designs they’re wearing and what vehicle they’re driving, and what the prominent buildings and landmarks are at a scene, along with links to more information or opportunities to add items to your wish list or shopping cart. Sky is looking ahead to other types of events where machine learning can deliver improved ROI. With live events being a key differentiator for broadcasters, and new, sophisticated tools now widely available, we can look forward to increasingly dynamic video innovations accompanying big live events.

GUEST LIST Powered by machine learning, the Who’s Who Live app, part of Sky News’ royal wedding coverage, identified guests as they arrived – and offers us a glimpse of the future of TV

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20 ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE AWS Elemental

TV STEPS UP TO THE CLOUD

Arqiva is turning to the cloud to offer new services for a multi- platform, multi-device world

or years, Arqiva has been the network underpinning a notable portion of UK broadcast delivery. But last month the company

Virtualisation enables Arqiva to quickly ramp up services without having to invest in capital-intensive infrastructure and to offer customers access to the new, flexible commercial opportunities the cloud can provide. At present, these new virtualised media management services are primarily focused on an OTT cloud head end for IP streaming and on non-linear/VOD services. “We have seen the market evolving for many years,” adds Alex Pannell, Managing Director, Satellite & Media, “so we have worked very closely with a number of our customers to really understand their challenges, opportunities and future business model needs.” Arqiva’s first goal was to reduce the cost of distribution for their customers in new markets, primarily with the delivery of linear TV channels, combined with the ability to deliver associated non-linear/VOD content as needed. “As a consequence of these

are increasingly watching away from the television – watching on tablets and smartphones – and our customers are in the business of wanting to ensure that they reach their audience in the right way and the most cost-effective way,” says Chris Alner, Arqiva’s Commercial Director for Media & Satellite. “What we’re hearing from our customers on the legacy broadcast side is ‘How do we ensure that we can reach all of these audiences and not just quadruple our cost base?’. I think they’re doing a huge amount of head scratching because a lot of them come from a fairly traditional linear broadcasting environment where they run in multiple channels across multiple territories around the world, and they can see that there is a slow shift of eyeballs into different forms of consumption.” CONSEQUENTIAL CONVERSATIONS Arqiva’s first step has been to virtualise some of its services by placing them in the cloud.

launched a new, cloud-based service – a suite of virtualised media management tools aiming to expand Arqiva’s already far-reaching broadcast services to include cloud-based playout, OTT managed head end and video on demand. The new offering is built on Amazon Web Services, with a serverless architecture that employs AWS Lambda, Amazon DynamoDB and the Amazon API Gateway. Arqiva plans to leverage AWS Elemental Media Services for dynamic ad insertion and live-to-VOD in the next few months, as well as for video processing in live and VOD workflows. In establishing a new branch of services, Arqiva isn’t just reaching into the future, but is responding to feedback from its long- standing broadcast customers. “People

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21 ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE AWS Elemental

WE HAVE WORKED VERY CLOSELY WITH A NUMBER OF OUR CUSTOMERS TO REALLY UNDERSTAND THEIR CHALLENGES different ways. The first will focus on their core TV market of US cable viewers. Then they are providing a fully virtualised cloud OTT platform for the distribution of European content into the US market. That means the broadcaster can quickly spin up instances in the cloud for use during the week and tear them down when they are finished. The result will be a low-cost, high-quality service that will allow them to experiment with the digital-first strategy. “I think the future for us will continue to be based on what our customers want,” says Alner. “They’re very high-profile brands. Their content needs to be delivered at high-quality with resilience and needs to be highly secure. We will therefore need to make full use of all and any technologies as part of that process. I expect for the next five to ten years that we’ll make increased use of the cloud across our entire portfolio.”

CHANGINGMODELS Sam Alwan is Arqiva’s Media Services Director. He agrees that enabling customers to experiment with new ways of delivering content is one of the company’s key services going forward. “To find the right models, our customers need the capability to essentially fail fast and fail cheap, which will allow them to find the perfect model for a particular brand or content or territory.” “Historically, Arqiva has been fundamentally an infrastructure company, removing infrastructure problems for its customers. Using cloud-based tools, they are moving more into being as a service provider, a partner to our customers trying to find traction in a changing world. “Arqiva’s role is being able to stitch together all of the different services or micro services that are out there in a way that makes them one entry point in, with multiple ways out, for our customers,” says Alwan. “Our key challenge is going to be keeping it as lean as possible, flexible as possible, and delivering to the same levels of service that we always have. “As the industry continues to change and key technology keeps evolving in a way that enables new ways of delivering to consumers, our model needs to change as well.”

conversations,” says Pannell, “we have built automated orchestration that lets us deploy, in scale, a number of fully-managed content services across a range of software- based solutions, without the need for capital intensive infrastructure or people-heavy processes. This provides our business and customers a cost model that provides flexibility whilst reducing commercial risk for all of us. “We can then add and augment with other cloud capabilities, including AI and machine learning.” the UK. The broadcaster asked Arqiva for advice about its non-linear/VOD processing. They have a constant flow of VOD assets that need to be delivered on a weekly and monthly basis, but they also have a challenge of wanting to launch into new markets which is a much shorter term requirement, requiring speed, flexibility and the ability to use AWS to burst into the cloud quickly. A second Arqiva partner is a major US broadcaster who acquired some high-profile sports content based out of Europe. The company wants to look at a digital-first strategy in delivering that content to their viewers in the US. Arqiva worked closely with the broadcaster for over a year and will be delivering content in a number of SPEED AND FLEXIBILITY One customer using the new Arqiva services is a major US-based multichannel broadcaster with significant presence in

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22 TECHFEED Immersive Audio

Words by David Davies

It’s early days for immersive audio on mobile, but everyone agrees that its potential, especially for sports, music, VR and AR services, is tremendous

he rise of immersive audio has been relatively swift and sure-footed, and in truth not wholly unexpected. The desire

Rob France is Senior Product Marketing Manager at Dolby, the company that arguably initiated the entire immersive audio movement with its Dolby Atmos object-based audio system. “Immersive for mobile is just getting started, relatively speaking, but it’s clear that its potential is significant,” he says. “Even through the app services we have supported to date, we could say that it is a key market for Dolby Atmos. But give it a few years and I would think it could well be the top market.”

for ‘more than stereo’ has fuelled a number of previous audio industry trends, in particular 5.1 for home theatres. But although uptake was relatively strong in some territories, it would be stretching the truth to claim that 5.1 has enjoyed universal adoption. Immersive audio and other audio technologies loosely grouped under the Next Generation Audio bracket could now be on the verge of global traction. Paving the way for even more all- encompassing audio experiences, these technologies frequently have their roots in the cinema, performance space or visitor attraction markets. Having begun a crossover into the domestic sphere, the adaptable nature of many such audio technologies means they could soon enjoy a very rewarding future in the mobile market.

23 TECHFEED Immersive Audio

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24 TECHFEED Immersive Audio

IMMERSIVE FOR MOBILE IS JUST GETTING STARTED... BUT IT’S CLEAR THAT ITS POTENTIAL IS SIGNIFICANT

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25 TECHFEED Immersive Audio

MORE THAN JUST HEARSAY At present there are two primary ways of delivering immersive audio to mobile customers. Firstly – and most rapidly in terms of being able to realise a service – via an app with immersive capabilities. Secondly, with support built into the mobile device itself – a potentially much more arduous path, but one with positive implications for general optimisation, quality of processing, and the immersive audio experience as a whole. Both approaches, says France, “are perfectly valid [and will be] determined by the effort that people are prepared to put in and how quickly they want to reach the market.” Inbuilt support for Dolby Atmos enables immersive audio to be optimised for that particular device, and a world of devices in which there is no need for the immersive capability to be added through additional apps is likely to be welcomed by broadcasters and content creators. This inbuilt device support might not be too far into the future, with products like Samsung’s Galaxy 9, which includes Dolby Atmos sound, hitting the market this year. Developers of immersive audio technologies, says France, are generally “putting a great deal of time and resources into making it easier and quicker for them to be integrated into devices. So I think we will see a lot more developments in that direction in the near future.” It hardly hinders the adoption of immersive audio that many of its key technologies have been developed with a view to being repurposed for different outlets and forms of consumption. Having already found favour in TV and cinema markets, the Fraunhofer-backed MPEG-H is now making inroads into headphone-based VR devices, smartphones and tablets, and in conjunction with the Cingo VR audio system is being used by industry leaders such as Google (in its family of Nexus and Pixel devices), Samsung Gear VR, LG 360 VR, Alcatel VISION and in the Hulu VR app. Dolby is pursuing a comparably diverse vision, with France observing that Dolby Atmos has always been “working across different platforms with different processing, and [in each case] regrading the sound so that consumers can get the most out of the immersive audio experience.” Immersive audio has scope to reach far more consumers than 5.1, which was essentially geared towards one principal application – decidedly upscale home theatre – and was always bound to price a sizeable percentage of consumers out of contention.

AWESOME AUDIO Dirac’s immersive audio technology adjusts the apparent direction of sound in response to the viewer’s movements

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26 TECHFEED Immersive Audio

AUGMENTING AUDIO AUDIENCES In terms of the immersive content that is going to be enjoyed over mobile devices, there is a broad consensus that VR/AR, sports and music are set to lead the charge. One company that can attest to the levels of interest in high quality immersive audio for VR and AR is Dirac. The Swedish company is a long-established specialist in digital audio optimisation solutions for mobile, automotive and home entertainment. Indeed, such is its faith in the sector that it recently created a VR/AR business unit, whose business director is Lars Isaksson. Developed through a process of modelling that, in contrast to the normal ‘plastic dummy head’ approach, shelled out for the heads of 20-25 human participants, the Dirac VR platform for VR and AR audio made its debut at CES 2017. Using Dynamic HRTFs (head-related transfer functions), Dirac VR has been developed to make it possible to de-liver “a great audio experience for the listener whatever the size

and shape of heads or ears,” says Isaksson. A second-generation Dirac VR system was introduced at Mobile World Congress 2018, during which Isaksson made an observation that bodes well for the future of immersive audio in mobile. “I noticed that for the first time a lot of the manufacturers were talking about, and marketing around, the audio capabilities of their phones,” he says. While VR and AR services are the initial focus of the platform, Isaksson says it has “great potential resonance” for sports and music/entertainment content too. Not surprisingly given its huge reach, sport has been a particular focus of immersive audio research, with Dolby continuing to work on optimising the Dolby Atmos experience for each of the main disciplines. Immersive audio for football is “fairly well-understood” at this point, says France, as is boxing. But there is still a considerable amount of work to be done in sports such as motor racing, where there are “multiple points of action” and each camera “needs to

have its own audio scene” to ensure that a consistent soundworld is maintained. “It’s worth taking time to understand each of these different sports, so that when [related services] are launched they are as good as they can be,” notes France. AN EAR FOR QUALITY There are few observers who expected the recent IBC2018 to be particularly rich in immersive audio-related service announcements, but the positive response to recent trials would suggest that 2019 is a fair bet in terms of mobile users accessing immersive content more readily. Like 4K/HDR in an age of fractured viewing habits, in which the main home TV holds reduced sway, consumers may reserve their greatest enthusiasm for immersive audio around major sports events or concert spectaculars. But its sheer accessibility compared to some predecessor technologies means that immersive is going to be much, much more than another 5.1.

A SOUND KICK-OFF

that you have the potential to reach many more end-users,” says Dolby’s Rob France. Russia’s Channel One was among the many national broadcasters to commit to delivering extensive coverage in Dolby Atmos, announcing in advance that a total of 27 matches would be shown live on air with Dolby Atmos support. MPEG-H also featured prominently during the World Cup, with South Korean TV and radio network company SBS transmitting more than 30 matches in UHD based on the ATSC 3.0 standard, utilising the features of Fraunhofer’s MPEG-H TV audio system, immersive audio and interactive audio.

If there was a single event this year that embodied the burgeoning possibilities of immersive audio, it was the FIFA World Cup in Russia. It was an occasion for broadcasters around the world to undertake immersive audio trials and schemes of various sizes and scopes, with Fraunhofer’s MPEG-H and Dolby Atmos heading the list of the most commonly- used technologies. The trial undertaken by China’s state TV broadcaster CCTV may prove particularly instructive, given that it centred around a mobile app using Dolby Atmos to deliver games in immersive audio. “At this early stage, doing everything in the app means

For a realistic user experience, the stadium atmosphere was transmitted in an immersive loudspeaker configuration of a 5.1 surround set-up accompanied by four height speakers. Meanwhile, the interactive element constituted a choice of three audio presets for each UHD-transmitted match – either a stadium atmosphere, or with Korean or English commentary added. It is likely to take a few more months for viewer feedback on the World Cup- related services to be fully assembled, but initial responses indicate a positive view that will surely be built upon at major forthcoming events – not least the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.

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28 BRANDS Barclaycard

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29 BRANDS Barclaycard

30 DAYS OF BARCLAYCARD Words By Neal Romanek

Groovy Gecko applies its live-streaming expertise to a campaign of live streamed shorts, featuring UK author and vlogger Giovanna Fletcher expanding her horizons with bikers, bakers, cricketers and dancers

that is just the first step in an expanding, apparently endless effort to become not just a business, but a brand, something that’s bigger than the sum of its commercial parts. Budding brands are looking to establish themselves as experts in their fields or are opening themselves to consulting and services that extend well beyond the products they sell. Companies now need to be prepared to quickly burst into adjacent markets and sectors and they need to be having an ongoing dialogue with their customers and building community. A brand stands for something. It produces an emotional response – a positive one in those who identify with it, a negative one in those who don’t. Video has proven to be one of the best platforms for building brands and for creating an identity around a business. London-based production company

Groovy Gecko has made a living boosting brands, especially through live, online video. Jake Ward, Groovy Gecko’s Business Development Director notes that even known brands are having to rethink their strategies for building around customer engagement. “Lately we’ve been seeing brands that you wouldn’t think of as being on social or as having a great social presence starting to use things like Facebook Live to engage their audience,” says Ward. “They realise their audiences are already there and just because they’re in a personal space – looking at photos from a party on the weekend – doesn’t mean they won’t engage with them. “Those audiences may be very small. When I’m talking to Nike, it’s millions of viewers, but for many it’s a few thousand. It’s still a valuable audience in both instances.”

JAKE WARD: Established brands still need to work hard to ensure they’re engaging with their customers

usiness isn’t what it used to be and the whole idea of what a business does is getting a radical rethink. The marketplace

is evolving so rapidly that businesses can no longer let themselves be defined solely by the products or services they provide. Hence the lure of the “brand”. A forward-looking business, in any sector, is looking to future-proof itself and that means looking beyond the products toward its position in the marketplace and its relationships with customers and partners. Most businesses are already on board with social media posting as being a necessary part of brand building, but

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30 BRANDS Barclaycard

BUILDING UP BARCLAYCARD In January of this year, Groovy Gecko produced a live social video campaign for Barclaycard, developed in collaboration with creative agency Iris Worldwide. The message that Barclaycard wanted to get across wasn’t the typical grandiose story of using the charge card to book a trip to Antarctica or to get your daughter through a semester of university. Instead it was a look at the possibilities for the small purchases that could be made on a Barclaycard that could generate fun and improve quality of life. “The idea was to almost produce lifestyle content that tied in with that Barclaycard message. Barclaycard has a very wide audience when it comes to the demographics, so we needed something that would appeal to them across the board, in different ways.” The campaign featured British author, presenter and frequent vlogger Giovanna Fletcher taking on a mini challenge for each of the 31 days of the month. Six days a week, Fletcher would receive a package which would contain instructions for a short challenge – things like “learn to bake a cake” or “learn your first skateboard trick” or “learn to upcycle something”.

INSTAGRAM IS MEANT TO BE A PHONE-BASED EXPERIENCE, SO IT LIMITS YOU SOMEWHAT CREATIVELY

minute video was posted of Fletcher encountering the challenge – sometimes succeeding, sometimes not. Then once a week, she would have to do a more involved, complex challenge. “Each of the weekly challenges was designed to appeal to a different one of the audiences with a different guest for each,” says Ward. “In the first one, Giovanna had to learn the Charleston, and her guest was Harry Judd who won Strictly Come Dancing in 2011.” The piece with Judd was interactive with audience members asking questions and commenting via Facebook Live. The audience picked out what kinds of outfits Fletcher would wear, what dance moves she would try and what music to choose. The four special guests over the month were chosen to appeal to very different demographics of the total Barclaycard customer base. After Harry Judd and the Charleston came champion cyclist Bradley Wiggins, cricketer Freddy

Flintoff and young Great British Bake Off contestant Liam Charles. “Working on it, we were aware that one piece may not have appealed to certain people, but we knew that the next one would appeal to a completely different segment of people. “ Fletcher also did challenges with notable YouTubers who brought their own audiences with them. All in all, the campaign cleverly drew on diverse media influencers with the challenges appealing to a diversity of audiences. The result was something that intersected almost every part of the all-encompassing demographic Barclaycard wants to reach. 31 DAYS OF POLLS The Barclaycard challenges were designed to be very simple. They were shot single camera, which kept the shooting uncomplicated and made for a unity of image style. Streaming was done via Groovy Gecko’s own encoders with

VARIETIES OF VIEWING Each day a short two-to-three-

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