Exploring the future of media technology
WELCOME TO FEED:SHOW CORONAVIRUS ROUND TABLE HELP FOR FREELANCERS TOKYO 2021
Turning isolation into collaboration
3 WELCOME
“Everything you do together is a radical act,” says Scottish comedian and professional depressive, Frankie Boyle. And while it might be unwise to adopt all of Boyle’s pronouncements as rules for life, the idea that we need radical togetherness is more apparent now than ever. Everyone for themselves is not working out well. The irony that it’s taken a coronavirus-induced global isolation to wake us up to the advantages – and the pleasure – of collaboration is not lost on most people. Companies in every sector are being pushed to use digital tools and move their businesses into the online world. The media and entertainment space – which had already started to embrace remote production, cloud workflows and long-distance collaboration – is being forced to put its money where its mouth is and put all these technologies into practice. For this issue, we have set aside our planned tech and content themes to focus solely on the effects – negative and positive – of the coronavirus crisis. The essential truth is that many people are suffering, and that this crisis is not going to go away soon. We are going to have to deal with it, like responsible adults, and deal with it together. But this time also seems to be a period of re-evaluation in terms of business models, tech use and personal values. I have spoken to very few people who think the world can go back to the way it was pre-Covid. In this issue, we also launch FEED:SHOW, which is our ‘trade show in a magazine,’ offering vendors a stage to make announcements and share news that GET TOGETHER
EDITORIAL
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DIGITAL HEAD OF DIGITAL CONTENT Daisy Dickinson
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TOKYO 2021 The CEO of Olympic Broadcasting Services, Yiannis Exarchos. explains the plan for next year 6 YOUR TAKE not at the finish line yet 11 STREAMPUNK crowd going again 18 ROUND TABLE coronavirus crisis 48 HAPPENING FEED worked with Soho Media Club on a webinar to help freelancers under pressure 56 not an entirely bad thing 58 OVER THE TOP Covid-19 is going to change the industry and the world, but that’s Sports has been especially hard hit by the Covid-19 crisis, but we’re With live music venues shutting down, live streaming gets the We learn how top tech vendors have been responding to the
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6 YOUR TAKE Tokyo 2021
Last issue, we featured a look at broadcast preparations for the world’s biggest celebration of sports. Since then, the Tokyo Olympics has been postponed till next summer, but Olympic Broadcasting Services is still ready to go THE OLYMPIC TORCH SHINES ON
e at Olympic Broadcasting Services made an early decision to have our employees stay home and stay safe as soon as the effects of the pandemic became apparent in Spain more than four weeks ago. We are pleased to report that we are all fine, as well as the 100+ staff we already had working in Tokyo. We haven’t had any diagnosed cases of Covid-19, and our thoughts are with the global community as we all navigate these extraordinary circumstances. The first thing we had to address was reorganising ourselves to be agile and work remotely. We were pleased, because we already had technology in place that would allow this to happen for OBS and the Olympic Channel. We have been very committed to the side of digital transformation and believing
that technology now provides incredible opportunities for us to do things in a far more efficient way. There has been a massive adoption of remote working from people and companies around the world, using tools to do things without necessarily having any physical presence in one particular space at all. This is at the heart of what we have been planning and designing for the Olympics. I don’t think the world, from a working point of view, will ever be the same. In terms of the postponement of the Games, as we are part of the IOC (International Olympic Committee), we were involved with some of the earliest internal discussions surrounding the impact. Once it was announced, our fundamental priority was to get in touch with our rights-holding broadcasters to advise them about the information related to the postponement, as well consider how we planned to adapt to the situation. We obviously didn’t have all of the answers yet – and we still don’t – but as the host broadcaster of the Games, we will do whatever it takes to keep the operations on track and unaffected for the next year and to support them as much as possible. We also reached out immediately to the hundreds of companies and thousands of professionals contracted for the Olympics and made a pledge to renew our collaboration for next year. I am humbled by the commitment, dedication and support we have received from them, especially under these challenging circumstances for the industry. This is further proof of the unique power of the Olympic Games to
YIANNIS EXARCHOS CEO of Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS)
© Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS)
I DON’T THINK THE WORLD, FROM A WORKING POINT OF VIEW, WILL EVER BE THE SAME
© Getty Images / IOC
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7 YOUR TAKE Tokyo 2021
serve as a beacon of hope and aspiration across so many walks of life. FUTURE EFFECTS It is evident that the Covid-19 crisis is also triggering a worldwide financial crisis, which will inevitably affect some revenue streams of the media and entertainment industry and especially the live entertainment, events and sports sectors. However, it is equally apparent that, during these times of adversity, content and storytelling have repeatedly proven to be among the closest and most reliable companions to humans, as the massive consumption of OTT and streaming services demonstrates. Perhaps because creative storytelling is so much linked to our need to imagine and (re)create a future, we turn to it even more in times of pain and despair. Therefore, I believe that when the pandemic is over (and it will be), those
creative communities and industries that manage to survive the current crisis will actually emerge stronger. The silver lining is going to be that, as with all major crises in human history, these months (years?) of the pandemic will hold up a mirror to the world and will, in turn, become a rich source of creativity, reflection, storytelling and even mythologising. With regards to the survival and resilience of the industry, I note that this crisis has become an impressive catalyst for digital transformation across the globe.
Digital transformation projects that many companies, including media companies, have had in their road maps with horizons of several years into the future have now accelerated in an amazing manner. OBS and the Olympic Channel have always considered themselves ardent early adopters of digital technologies that facilitate remote workflows and efficient production, content creation and distribution methods based on cloud infrastructure, and we are very determined to continue on this path. We also expect
THIS CRISIS HAS BECOME AN IMPRESSIVE CATALYST FOR DIGITAL TRANSFORMATIONACROSS THE GLOBE
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8 YOUR TAKE Tokyo 2021
that the Olympic broadcasters will be more and more keen on following us on that same path. ON THE SAME TEAM While I fully expected our teams to adapt and acclimate to a new remote working scenario, I am continuously impressed and motivated by the dedication the teams of both OBS and the Olympic Channel have shown in continuing to deliver all that is required to keep our plans on track. On the one hand: the OBS team, which had already started getting into an operational mode for Tokyo 2020, shifted within hours to a massive replanning phase encompassing the Tokyo Games, now planned for 2021, the Beijing Games in winter 2022 and the Dakar Youth Olympic Games in the fall of 2022 – an unprecedented sequence of massively complex events. Meanwhile, the Olympic Channel team continued, without missing a beat, to produce and operate not just the Olympic Channel platform and its different versions around the world, but also the Tokyo 2020 website as the content and technology powerhouse of the wider Olympic digital strategy. All this was done without a single member of the two teams needing to have a presence on our premises. So many of them have gone above and beyond what is expected, despite also having to factor in the additional demands of working alongside their partners, supporting their children and their education, or being in total isolation. What we have learned, or perhaps what we have always known, THE OBS TEAM, WHICH HAD ALREADY STARTED GETTING INTO AN OPERATIONAL MODE FOR TOKYO 2020, SHIFTEDWITHIN HOURS TO AMASSIVE REPLANNING PHASE
© Getty Images
© Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS)
is that we have assembled a team of highly professional individuals whose commitment to the success of the Olympic Games, and the Olympic values themselves, is undeniable. The lack of technology or digital tools has not been a major hurdle in the fast adoption of digital workflows in the media industry per se. On the contrary, we have long now realised within OBS and the Olympic Channel that the existing technology is already quite advanced and reliable for us. Possibly the biggest hurdle has been a level of inertia from certain players in the industry in adopting something that is different from what they have been used to, and this inertia is quite an important factor. We realise again and again that it
can limit the speed of implementation of technologies, regardless of the maturity of these available technologies. This represents an opportunity that pandemic. It has made the advantages of digitalisation even more obvious and it has provided a ‘super-accelerated’ training for millions of media professionals on digital workflows and tools that otherwise would have taken years to be completed. After the pandemic, we will enter a very different era in the methodologies and workflows that will be followed in content production, management and distribution. OBS and the Olympic Channel are more than ready to accept the challenge. comes out of the very unfortunate circumstances of the coronavirus
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11 YOUR TAKE Live Sports
SPORTS PRODUCTION CALLS TIME OUT Covid-19 has brought sports to a screeching halt, but some are looking for silver linings
he coronavirus outbreak is having an unprecedented impact on the ability to stage live sports, and the market has gone from global
For Supponor, that means that we’re not only looking at how we can continue to advance our offering and add more feature functionality to our platform based on market needs and direction, but, importantly, how we can further scale our business through increased efficiency in operations and deployments for our internal and partner teams. We are seeing this as an opportunity to invest time in internal efforts and existing relationships and to continue to push the boundaries in virtual advertising and extend our lead in this emerging market. This market is one in which we are generating huge success, with an increasing number of global sports rights owners and leagues leveraging our proprietary and patented technologies to authentically and respectfully deliver new monetisation opportunities through the use of audience- targeted virtual overlay or placement of TV-visible messaging within premium live sports events. More than that, our years of commercial and technical experience have also allowed us to make significant inroads into integrating into the complex and ever- evolving ecology of TV production within a live broadcast sports environment, whether that is accommodating HD, Ultra HD (4K), HDR or understanding the value and opportunities remote production (REMI) and downstream integration can bring, along with unlimited scale through cloud-based infrastructures and more. This current hiatus allows us to do even more of that. Greater emphasis is being WE ARE SEEING THIS AS AN OPPORTUNITY TO INVEST TIME
coverage to ‘no-ball’ in a period of just a few weeks. It is a shuddering halt, the likes of which no one can recall in living memory, but that doesn’t mean that all activity has stopped. For many companies, like ours, this has become a really busy time that offers an unexpected opportunity to pivot towards focusing on the many innovative R&D projects that we have placed on the back burner while (understandably) prioritising servicing a growing client base until now.
DAVID PATTON The vice-president of business development at Supponor, on how to make the best of this new situation
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12 YOUR TAKE Live Sports
put on using the power of computers and their abilities to use complex algorithms to intelligently process ever-greater amounts of data to complete previously unimaginable tasks. It goes without saying that, as a technology-focused business, we have always had a long road map of exciting ideas. In this breathing space, we can not only look at making what we do more creative and efficient, but also how we can evolve the underlying platform and technology to support the changes that we see coming. Much as this is a devastating time around the world for many economies and individuals, we do believe that when we come to the other side of this, we will have some exciting things to unveil. It’s not all about R&D though. While the sports broadcast industry might be on hold, the contracts and long-standing valuable associations we continually strive to develop and maintain with leading rights holders and partners such as LaLiga, Mediapro and FC Barcelona, the Bundesliga, the DFL, Sportcast and Lagardère Sports, the NBA and the NHL – give a long- term stability to our business. These are trusted and long-standing collaborative relationships with long engagement times and opportunity cycles. To that end, we are already in conversations regarding how our technologies, and new developments, can and will be deployed in the next season, the one beyond or even into the future. As trusted advisors, we are also actively working with our partners and clients to support the restart of live sports when it comes. Part of that is about putting our technologies back into play, but maybe not quite in the manner that they were before, with more focus on social distancing and discussions revolving around how we can all collaborate more to support a reduced need for on-site operations. However, another part of that revolves around some interesting discussions about how the overlay and WE ARE ALSO ACTIVELY WORKING WITH OUR PARTNERS AND CLIENTS TO SUPPORT THE RESTART WHEN IT COMES
placement graphics we specialise in can reduce the impact of empty stadium or arena seating on viewer experiences, while offering opportunities to display socially important messaging and additional value to key commercial partners once the cameras are turned on again. Esports is an interesting growth area – one which we are continuing to monitor and has seen some huge wins as traditional live sports have ceased. While advertising within a game is effectively a matter of coding and making changes to virtual ad assets depending on where the viewer is, managing the back end of such an operation can be a complex task. Of course, the bigger events will still want to return to the live arena-hosted extravaganzas that is more of our natural environment. It is also interesting to think about how the production of live sports may have to change, especially if this turns out not to be a one-off event and we have subsequent waves of infection and accompanying lockdown cycles. Sports and sports broadcasting have always been a people- intensive industry – be that relating to fans in the stadium or production crews behind the scenes – but, increasingly, they don’t have to be. The large operational footprint taken up by your typical tier-one sports production could be shrunk dramatically by remote production and routing cameras into a centralised operation facility using
ever-more ubiquitous fibre connectivity, or even leveraging emerging video over IP standards, for instance. Sports rights owners are already acknowledging that a traditional broadcast model built around fans in stadiums is not the only game in town. There is much to be said for the potential of direct-to-consumer OTT models where sports, clubs and new and more-established broadcasters can monetise individual fans via subscriptions or even targeted promotion in-game! Covid-19 has changed a huge amount of what we thought we knew in a short space of time. But it gives us a great opportunity at the same time. At some point, the switch is going to be flipped and the arenas, circuits and stadiums of the world will be filled with sporting activity again. The waiting cameras will be ready to beam those images around the world to eager audiences. Now is a great time to be looking at the structures underpinning all of that and work out how we want to change them so that, when we all come back, we come back even better.
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14 ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE AWS
We talk with two media innovators working to unite the disciplines of broadcast and cloud
TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK Krystal Mejia (left) and Sarah Nagata (right) helped deliver the livestream of the Super Bowl
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15 ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE AWS
n 2019, Sarah Nagata, senior consultant cloud architect at AWS, and Krystal Mejia, software engineer at CBS Interactive, helped deliver the landmark livestream of Super Bowl LIII. We talk to them about the synergies that happen when technical ability is allowed to thrive in an environment of collaboration and knowledge sharing. Thanks for joining us. Could you tell us about your backgrounds? SARAH NAGATA: I’ve worked in the broadcast industry for more than 15 years. Three years ago, I moved to AWS to get hands-on experience with the cloud. I recognised that this would be the next step in the evolution of the media and entertainment Industry. KRYSTAL MEJIA: I have been working as a professional software engineer for around three years. I had internships in college where I worked mostly on front-end development and before my graduation I landed an internship at CBS Sports Digital. They offered me a full-time role on the Video and OTT team and, later, I transitioned to the Video Technology Group at CBS Interactive. We focus broadly on providing technology and services to all of the brands that make up CBS Interactive. How did you come together to work on the 2019 Super Bowl? SN: As a solutions architect, I was assigned to the CBS Interactive account when the 2019 Super Bowl planning sessions began. I felt it was important to understand the project’s requirements. I observed there were others in the room listening to the different ideas being discussed, too. After the meeting, I had some questions, so I pinged Krystal and Flavio Ribeiro, the director of Engineering from the Video Technology Group at CBS Interactive. They also had questions and our collaborative partnership began. KM: For Flavio and I, this project was an opportunity to share our blend of developer and broadcast knowledge with Sarah’s expertise in those areas. For us, it was: ‘How can we come together from both sides to finalise these workflows and solutions?’
I’VE HAD SO MANY WONDERFUL PEOPLE IN MY CORNER PUSHING ME, TRUSTING ME, EMPOWERING ME, TELLINGME TO SPEAK UP INMEETINGS
SN : Experienced broadcasters have a deep understanding of fundamentals and they know the reason why standards and protocols evolved to where they are today. They were there for the analogue to digital to HD to IP transitions. They should be looked at as sources of useful information. The new generation of video developers understand the latest tools and tech, and know how to apply them. Additionally, they are always thinking about how to streamline processes. By combining both, they are able to solve problems and create new solutions together faster and more efficiently. There are lessons we’ve learned from the past about things that worked or didn’t in traditional broadcast workflows. We need to share that information with developer teams, so we can make things better. KM: Whereas my focus has always been in digital and streaming, so I’m not as familiar with all those differences.
solve. Someone recommended we do it a certain way, but when Krystal and I looked, it wasn’t that simple. Krystal needed to write code. KM: I was working on a test application. I reached out to Sarah and said, ‘I need some perspective about how you have handled this in the past.’ She sent me some docs and I tried to build out the application. SN: Whenever you asked a question, I would send you information; some you found on your own, and sometimes we reviewed it together and I tried to explain how these standards applied to ad tracking in broadcast workflows. I didn’t know how to write the code or develop the application, but I did know how the end solution needed to function and how it needed to be tested.
Is there still a communications gap between these two worlds?
THE SOCIAL NETWORK Sarah Nagata believes networking should never be underestimated when forging your career
What was educating each other like?
SN: There was one ad tracking problem that CBS Interactive Sports asked AWS to
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16 ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE AWS
MAGNIFICENT MENTORING Krystal Mejia of CBS Interactive has always seen Nagata as a mentor, reaching out to her every time she needed advice
SN: I also remember you and Flavio would be working on different portions of the code – you would be checking things in and out of GitHub and then performing reviews on each other ’s code. And you were able to roll back faster or make changes. KM: There’s a lot of overlap when you think of the projects my team works on – one is in the live environment and one is in the VOD environment, so we need to collaborate and communicate with each other quickly. We’re all on the same team, but we’re all hyper-focused on our own code base. With the cloud, you have GitHub or Version Control, which allows you to collaborate more quickly. SN: I also liked how you guys releveraged your video solutions across different business units within CBS Interactive, because we weren’t just working on the Super Bowl. KM: It’s great to be able to collaborate and learn from each other. Sharing our experiences and learning from our failures is what makes us successful. SN: The other thing to note is that all of us were working remotely from many locations. CBS used online meeting tools, such as Zoom, which enabled us to feel like we were working together in the same room, when in reality we spent very little time physically together until the live event. How was it doing that much live remote collaboration? SN: We use similar tools at AWS, but with CBS Interactive, Krystal, Flavio and I conducted open mic working sessions that enabled us to work on our individual tasks and perform testing while having the ability to pop-up and raise questions as I LEARNED YOU CANNOT DO EVERYTHING YOURSELF. YOU NEED TO IDENTIFY EACH TEAM MEMBER’S TALENT
SN: It is easier for teams to experiment with new technologies in minutes instead of days or weeks. For example, we’re able to try new things and figure out quickly what works and what doesn’t. We’re able to fail faster, so that we learn from mistakes and create better solutions. KM: It allows for all the experimenting that we do. We’re able to finalise how we see our infrastructure being built and deployed in the cloud. My day-to-day is a lot of collaborating with different divisions within CBS Interactive to get us out of the data centre. The data centre is hard to manage. It’s easier to run containers in the cloud. SN: It’s also easier to share and work collaboratively in the cloud, especially if you’re using a DevOps type of mentality. Can you tell us about using DevOps in the broadcast world? KM: We actually have to architect our own systems and how we’re going to distribute them in the cloud. I’ve been forced to be my own DevOps engineer. When I was in college, I never thought DevOps was something I would be doing, but it’s exciting to understand how you’re containerising and distributing your systems.
The Super Bowl 2019 project was such a collaborative process, where we worked hand-in-hand with the broadcast team for the OTT delivery of the broadcast. I see a lot of that moving forward now, with more collaboration in that environment. How are cloud technologies changing what you do? KM: I’ve been working in the cloud since I started. Cloud forces me to think of my infrastructure as code. It takes my focus from being solely on the application layer. The flexibility and scaleability that you get with the cloud makes so much sense for anything I do. And it doesn’t have to be just media technology. I’m constantly writing code using container services. SN: When you have infrastructure as a code, you’re not tied to specific machines or set-ups. It’s easier to be able to replace those items when they break. And if you want a third or fourth or fifth, or you want to move it to a different region, it’s easier to do that in the cloud. KM: And you can scale on demand most of the time and pay only for what you are using. How does working in the cloud change how teams collaborate?
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17 ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE AWS
SN: AWS and CBS Interactive have well-developed diversity and inclusion programmes. KM: When I got to CBS Interactive, the culture I felt was very inclusive. I hadn’t seen that in the previous internships. Even as an intern, it stuck out to me.
needed and get a quick response – similar to working in the same room together. For example, if Krystal encountered an error, she would open a screen-sharing session where we could review her code together and discuss possible solutions. KM: Even today with the new team I’m on, everyone that works on delivery in the video technology group is based in San Francisco and the video processing team is in New York. A lot of what we do is in Zoom and Slack. That’s how we share and collaborate. What has been your experience as women working in the media and entertainment industry? SN: Krystal and I are in places of privilege where we feel included and recognised at our companies. We don’t differentiate or label ourselves, we are just part of a team and we happen to be women. It is important to create a diverse and inclusive environment in order to promote collaboration and generate the best outcomes. KM: I’ve been incredibly blessed at CBS Interactive, because of how many women there are in leadership positions. I don’t think too much about the gender roles. I really did just go in there and do my job. SN: In particular, Stephanie Lone from CBS Sports Digital and Liz Carrasco at CBS Interactive both took the time to acknowledge and recognise our work. They served as strong role models that motivated and inspired us to voice and share our ideas and opinions. KM: Those two have been a huge part of my success, too. They’ve been super supportive of my entire career and make me feel seen. WHEN I NEED HELP WITH ANYTHING OUTSIDE OF MY REALM OF EXPERTISE, SARAH IS MY FIRST PHONE CALL
my old team to my new team, I reached out to Sarah for advice. Having her in my corner has always been great. She pushes me, which is important. SN: It’s funny as I was going to say the same thing. Krystal is my friend, so I value our friendship first, but I also look to her to learn things. She’s always been there to teach me about coding, development cycles and other new technologies. Often, when I have ideas for a project design, I’ll use Krystal as a sounding board. She is able to see the things I’m not seeing – she has a different skill set. It helps to fill the gaps and make the solution complete. KM: That’s our relationship in a nutshell because, when I need any help with anything outside of my realm of expertise, Sarah is my first phone call. I feel like I developed so many great friendships out of that project. SN: The project team was quite large and we worked very collaboratively together. When things went wrong in the middle of the night or on the weekend, everybody was there to stay late and support one another to solve those issues. Projects are successful when three key elements are present: a team that checks its egos at the door, a team that is focused
What is the most important thing you’ve learned in your careers?
KM: For me, it is the importance of good mentors. If I look back at my first year, I remember feeling nervous, with a lot of imposter syndrome, thinking ‘I’m not good enough. Why are they giving me these projects? This is too much.’ But I’ve had so many wonderful people in my corner pushing me, trusting me, empowering me, telling me to speak up in meetings, telling me to take the lead. That has been the biggest change for me. SN: I learned you cannot do everything yourself. You need to identify each team member ’s talent and put them in a position to be successful. That’s how teams win. Finally, what does each of you value most about the other? KM: Again, it’s the importance of good mentors. Sarah has always felt like a mentor to me. She’ll always say, ‘No, we’re friends. We’re colleagues.’ She refuses to say she’s a mentor, but seeing Sarah speaking up in meetings is what got me to speak up. Every time I needed advice in my career, when I was trying to transition from
on achieving the same goal and a
team where everyone recognises that each individual brings their own expertise.
FRIENDS IN THE MAKING
Nagata and Mejia have grown from work colleagues to friends, pushing and supporting
each other throughout
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18 STREAMPUNK Live Music
Words by Chelsea Fearnley
Could live streaming be the answer to the music industry’s coronavirus free fall?
esterday, I went to a rave. It was everything I hoped it would be, with spinning decks and heavy drops. But this rave was different
up the stream’s chat, I could definitely feel their presence. Now, there’s nothing quite like the spiritual experience of going out to a venue and grooving along to your favourite songs beside thousands of strangers but, as the Covid-19 outbreak continues to spread and people are being forced to stay at home, it has quickly become the norm for music fans around the world to stay indoors and watch shows. LEVERAGING A NEW MEDIUM In a matter of weeks, the global concert industry has come to a halt, leading to
from all the others I’ve been to. Instead of rubbing shoulders with sweaty fans and getting my eardrums blown out by club speakers, I was in my bedroom, watching the performance on my laptop. The set was called LIVE: ONLINE RAVE W DUCKY and was one of LA-based producer and DJ Ducky’s daily scheduled live streams on Twitch. I couldn’t actually see the other fans also tuned in but, thanks to the constant cascade of emojis filling
FACE THE MUSIC Ducky, a musician based in LA, regularly livestreams her sets using the platform, Twitch
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19 STREAMPUNK Live Music
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billions of dollars’ worth of ticket sale losses. A study published by the trade publication Pollstar purported that, in a worst-case scenario, the industry could lose almost $9 billion if coronavirus quarantines don’t lift by the end of the year – and that’s just in missed ticket sales. The figure is much higher when you factor in associated businesses like transportation, production, marketing, concessions, security, sponsorships and more. Losses aren’t just financial, either; concerts are also highly emotional, often cathartic experiences that are essential for strengthening the bonds between artists and their fans. Live streaming is the next best thing to an in-person show, and artists of all statures have raced to organise virtual events for their fans. Interestingly, Twitch – usually a gamer haven – has become the platform of choice for many artists. Why? While Instagram and Facebook offer an easy option to reach people en masse, Twitch provides a better deal for artists who are finding this time particularly challenging – socially and financially. Ducky (real name: Morgan Neiman), who has had an on-again and off-again relationship with Twitch over the past two years, explains: “It’s more community- oriented than Facebook and Instagram, and much more interactive. You can cheer, chat, subscribe, gift subscriptions and use custom emotes for your channel. It’s also heavily focused on earning.” She took an extended break from the streaming service when her touring schedule made it difficult to maintain an active online presence but, with tours off the cards for the foreseeable, has been tuning into her Twitch channel on the daily. “I’ve loved Twitch since I began DJing on it; I think it’s an amazing way to connect with fans,” she enthuses. BUSINESS BUSKING The normalisation of live streaming could be revolutionary for the music business, since it has the potential to scale concerts to the same level as recorded music. The biggest artists could reach hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of viewers around the world with a single show. In a virtual world, it’s also much easier for fans to jump from one show to the next and build their own self-directed line-up. But the business model for this burgeoning live stream ecosystem is proving challenging. Everyday consumers aren’t paying for live streams, and a lot of recent virtual shows have been held for free or to raise money for charity. DJ D-Nice has hosted multiple ‘Club
SOUND OF MUSIC As a result of the coronavirus lockdown, artists and musicians are turning to live streaming to connect with fans
Quarantine’ marathon DJ sessions from his Los Angeles apartment on Instagram, with the likes of Michelle Obama and Joe Biden tuning in. And Kali Uchis, a Colombian artist, took requests for covers via the same streaming medium, and later donated $10,000 to the CDC. It’s definitely true that these artists weren’t in it to make money, but those who are struggling to make ends meet should find themselves a platform that isn’t a full-time social networking, part-time live streaming service. YouTube, a video service, allows artists to livestream performances, with
SUBSCRIBERS GIVE YOU MONTHLY PAYMENTS AND, IN EXCHANGE, YOUOFFER THEM INCREASEDBENEFITS
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21 STREAMPUNK Live Music
IT’S EXTREMELY IMPORTANT THAT ARTISTS GET THEIR SET-UP RIGHT BEFORE GOING LIVE
add a lot more. Fans can also tip in micro amounts with things like Cheers.” Monetisation tools on Twitch are only available to Twitch Affiliates, a status that is dependent on a number of factors, such as having at least 50 followers and an average of three concurrent viewers or more over the last 30 days. But, in the wake of Covid-19, concert notification service Bandsintown partnered with Twitch to let artists bypass the normal qualifications needed to become a Twitch Affiliate and get fast access to the service’s moneymaking features. Twitch also gives artists the option to direct their fans to another artist’s stream once their show has finished; they can also let other artists use their channel to access their fans while they’re not live. But it seems newcomers aren’t familiar with these rules. Ducky says: “Some artists are bringing tens of thousands of viewers with them to the platform, and that’s dope! But maybe when they’re done, it would be nice if they directed their fans to a smaller artist’s stream. It’s the same as bringing a smaller artist on tour with you – except, this literally costs nothing and takes no effort.” SOLIDARITY SESSIONS Artists who are most successful with live streaming technology use it often. Ducky comes from a tech background and has recently been lending her tech know- how to artists learning how to stream on Twitch. She says: “It’s extremely important that artists get their set-up right before going live. I’m seeing some artists go live well before they’re ready and it might work for them once or twice, because they’re bringing in fans from the outside world, but it’s not going to motivate fans to stick around and subscribe.” Singer-songwriter Clare Means spent over a year livestreaming her busking on Periscope, and at one point made $1400 dollars in digital tips from a one-hour performance. Many indie electronic artists like Hana and JVNA have been livestreaming on Twitch at least once a week for several months now, answering
questions from fans and lifting the veil on their recording process. “Artists aren’t realising how much work goes into creating an engaging stream and maintaining it, and I think a lot of them will burn out. There will be some that will take to it, love it and keep it going. I think it will just continue to grow as a world that people have discovered and are still discovering, even as real-life shows start to come back. People will think, ‘I can see my favourite artist from my bedroom tonight – maybe I’ll stay in and do that and chat to my friends,’” reflects Ducky. The friendships and the community that Twitch provides is the driving force behind the platform. Building a compelling live streaming experience isn’t just about making an online carbon copy of a bricks- and-mortar concert: it’s about recreating the emotions people feel when they go out. From the fan’s perspective, the stage in a live stream is just their screen, and the audience is the chat room. There’s a diminished sense of hierarchy between the artist and the fan, leading to interactions that can be much more social and interactive. Ducky says: “In some ways, it’s easier to meet fans, because you have the chat room. There are no awkward approaches from fans at a show or talking over the music. We have a Discord, too, with a special channel for subscribers. So, there’s a lot of community building going on; a lot of socialising, people making new friends and hanging out. It’s not the same feeling as your chest rattling from the subs, getting lost in the crowd, all that – it’s a different energy,” she concludes, before adding: “But it’s really special.”
income generated through ad revenue. The amount of profit relies heavily on the amount of advertising and number of viewers – videos under ten minutes make, on average, $2 dollars for every 1000 views. Twitch, on the other hand, works on a subscription basis, where fans pay set fees to access streams. Ducky says: “Twitch supports different tiers of subscriptions and donations. Subscribers give you monthly payments and, in exchange, you offer them increased benefits – what these are is up to the artist, fans can receive badges and emotes that are built into the platform, but you can use extensions to
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22 ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE Grass Valley
New cloud solution helps Blizzard expand its broadcast offering during Covid-19 lockdown GRASS VALLEY’S NEW CLOUD PRODUCTION PLATFORM
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23 ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE Grass Valley
ears ago, Grass Valley set out to develop a platform that could revolutionise broadcast workflows using cloud elasticity.
ONE OPERATOR JOKED, ‘I’M IN MY PYJAMAS IN MY LIVING ROOM!’
Launched in April, in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis, it could not have been more timely. It’s been well-understood that the hardest work to do in the cloud is live TV production. The complexities of latencies, I/O scaling, multiple cameras and audio sources, and distributed teams operating in real time have made broadcasters nervous about leaving behind their traditional workflows. “We thought if we could solve live production in the cloud, we could solve pretty much anything,” says Mike Cronk, vice-president of advanced technology for broadcast tech innovators, Grass Valley. After four years of research and development, the result is GV AMPP, Grass Valley’s cloud-based live production platform. Cronk describes AMPP (Agile Media Processing Platform) as being like “an operating system for video to enable remote production in the cloud”. With AMPP, a fully browser-based system offers the ability to flexibly create multiple workflows, with different nodes consisting of multiviewers, test signal generators, switching capability and recording all happening in the user ’s cloud provider of choice. “You could build an entire virtual control room, save it as a snapshot and then restore it when you need it in a matter of seconds. Or restore a totally different workflow. I think this level of flexibility in doing productions is something new,” remarks Cronk. AMPP has been built with cloud in mind from the start, which may give it an edge over competitors. All the interfaces are
designed for HTML5, so a user doesn’t need anything more than a browser on a laptop. “Because we’ve taken a platform approach, broadcasters can start to envision and build workflows very quickly and easily, rather than cobbling something together in the cloud,” he explains. AMPP is available on a pay-as-you-go basis. Users only pay for the time they are running workloads. When the cloud instance is no longer being used by AMPP, the billing stops. SOLVING PROBLEMS Developing AMPP required substantial investment in solving hard technical problems, with Grass Valley’s best scientists dedicated to solving thorny issues like latency management. The company also took a different tack from many of its competitors in that it didn’t choose to announce the technology until it was fully deployable. “We wanted to prove it out with some key partners and customers, get them on air and make sure they were happy,” says Cronk. “Then we could talk about it.” Grass Valley road-tested GV AMPP earlier this year in a deployment with Blizzard Entertainment. The gaming and esports company started using AMPP’s Master Control application for its Overwatch League and Call of Duty League weekly tournaments. AMPP Master Control is aimed at small and medium-sized productions that need extra flexibility or when a traditional master control model might not be economically viable. The deployment means Blizzard doesn’t need a conventional equipment room. Equipped with only PCs, screens and a connection to the cloud, the teams are able to do master control for multiple productions at multiple venues. A single master control operator can produce
their location, can now monitor feeds and locally control programme distribution to production partners around the world, with the switching and distribution occurring entirely in Blizzard’s cloud provider, AWS. REMOTE REMEDY The Covid-19 crisis has meant the whole world is facing an unprecedented need to work remotely. Grass Valley has received increasingly urgent calls for a production solution that can be accessed anywhere and AMPP is proving a useful solution. “People are saying: ‘We don’t only need cloud for master control. We now literally can’t even enter our building. Our on-screen talent and every single operator need to be able to do this from home. Can you help us?,’” says Cronk. Grass Valley has been working hard to provide this new functionality for broadcasters needing to suddenly redesign how they work to adapt to an unprecedented situation. This has included AMPP Master Control orchestrating operators and talent working from their homes. “One operator joked, ‘I’m in my pyjamas in my living room!’,” reflects Cronk. Grass Valley is now engaged with key broadcasters worldwide who need true distributed remote production capabilities in this unprecedented crisis. With an urgent need to connect media teams, the company will no doubt be responding to more requests in the coming weeks. Businesses of all kinds are being forced to work collaboratively, using the cloud and IP connectivity, in ways they had never anticipated. Will this time mark a watershed in how we communicate and work? Are we on the verge of an age of truly decentralised broadcast? If so, Grass Valley will be ready. Cronk concludes: “More people are willing to take the leap to cloud-based production at the moment, because they often have no alternative – that’s how we have to do things when we’re quarantined in our houses. Things will get back to normal, but the importance of having a cloud strategy will stay.”
multiple distribution streams with separate graphics and languages for each audience region, all from a single web-based interface.
Blizzard’s master control operators, regardless of
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24 ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE AJA
Video streaming is becoming an important part of every organisation and business. AJA has devices to make high-quality streaming easy for everyone SIMPLIFY YOUR LIVE STREAMING
surge in consumer access to high- end OTT and streaming content is driving demand for quality streaming across industries. As
corporations give more support to remote work environments, global events go virtual, distance learning gains momentum and religious organisations seek new ways to reach congregations, demand for high- quality live streaming workflows has shot up. Streaming live video offers content creators a host of benefits. Live transmission of corporate presentations, religious services, events or meetings provides instantaneous video to audiences, in addition to options for instant media playback and on- demand viewing. The amount of physical memory required for optimal viewing is ideal for smartphones or tablets, as only a small portion of the streaming media file is stored at any one time. Additionally, content creators have complete control over media viewing rights to prevent pirating or unauthorised copying of streams. While the hardware and AV requirements for professional-level streaming imply complexity, AJA Video Systems’ Io and KONA I/O devices provide simplified paths to affordable, broadcast-quality live streams. Io 4K Plus is a Thunderbolt 3-connected capture and output device with 12G-SDI and HDMI 2.0, while Io 4K offers 3G-SDI and HDMI via Thunderbolt 2. The versatile KONA family of PCIe desktop cards includes the KONA 5, with four 12G-SDI inputs in an eight-lane PCIe 3.0 card, and KONA 4 offering four 3G-SDI inputs for four channels of HD input. KONA 1 provides cost-effective input from a single 3G-SDI source, while KONA HDMI offers up to four HDMI inputs simultaneously. All of these solutions are capable of driving broadcast-grade live streams, feature compatibility with popular streaming applications and support live switching between multiple sources up to 4K/Ultra HD. AJA’s I/O solutions feature professional connectivity for streamlined integration into any workflow, with support for a wide range of applications for streaming and live production, including Wirecast, vMix, Adobe Flash Media Live Encoder, Unreal Engine, and Medialooks MFormats SDK, MPlatform SDK and Video Transport.
LIVE AID AJA Video Systems’ Io and KONA I/O devices enable users to toggle between multiple SDI or HDMI cameras and content sources
AJA’S I/O SOLUTIONS FEATURE PROFESSIONAL CONNECTIVITY When paired with a switching application, KONA- and Io-based systems are capable of functioning as production switchers, enabling users to toggle between multiple SDI or HDMI cameras and content sources to create a more dynamic visual experience for audiences. The use of applications like vMix or Wirecast enables easy insertion of graphics, presentations and transitions into streams for more engaging content. Inserting presentations into live streams to enrich visual content is also easily accomplished via integrating AJA’s ROI family of scan converters. ROI converts any presentation running on a laptop or workstation to SDI or HDMI output in any desired HD resolution or frame rate. Combining this capability with Io or KONA devices offers one-man operations a simple way to ingest a camera feed and a computer-based presentation into their streaming system at the same raster size
and frame rate, for compatibility, easy switching and professional-looking delivery. To maximise source inputs, AJA enables users to seamlessly combine multiple KONA cards and Thunderbolt devices within a workstation for simultaneous switching and delivery to a CDN or social media platform. For online learning, educators can switch between multiple camera sources to display a range of presentation materials to enhance lessons. In house-of-worship environments, live switching between camera feeds of sermons and musical performers can augment religious services. The flexibility of these devices also streamlines workflows for government or news organisations to ensure the public receives broadcast-quality content from multiple sources. For the added value of immediate video on-demand, add the Ki Pro GO H.264 recorder and player into the source input chain, prior to feed delivery to KONA or Io. Within a half-rack 2RU form factor, Ki Pro GO captures up to four simultaneous channels of H.264, with configurations for ISO records. Integrating Ki Pro GO into the workflow to capture ISO feeds provides a recording for immediate VOD delivery after an event, as well as a redundant recording in case of any bandwidth or delivery issues
during live streaming.
For more information, visit aja.com/solutions/streaming
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