Exploring the future of media technology
ESPORTS BLOCKCHAIN FOR ADVERTISERS HOT MEDIA TECH START UPS INSIDE THE YOUTUBE SPACE BUILDING A NETWORK FOR YOUTH SPORTS YOUR G FUTURE
DELIVERING PYEONGCHANG
3 WELCOME
WELCOME TO FEED
What if you could build a broadcast tech magazine from the ground up? How would you do it? What would you cover? Would you stick to the same stories about the same infrastructures at the same incumbent institutions, peppered with an occasional thought leadership piece
about a far-o connected media future? Or would you (clever as you are) realise that connected media future is here. it’s now. We’re living it. And that broadcast has changed so much in the past five years, that the term has almost lost its meaning. In the current media landscape, some of our biggest stars are twenty- somethings operating out of their basements. A small church in Ohio can broadcast its message anywhere in the world. OTT TV companies command more respect from talent than big movie studios. And politicians are circumnavigating traditional gatekeepers and talking to followers directly online. FEED is the first magazine dedicated to exploring and explaining the tech and tools behind this streaming video ecosystem. Oh, and a magazine? On paper? Really? Yes, really. We’re all striving to have healthy boundaries around our media-saturated lives, but in the meantime, our ability to concentrate deeply is taking a beating. We reflexively respond to the email, the tweet, the text, the click- bait, the Like button, and our thought life gets broken into bits, mosaic tiles that can be hard to piece together into long-term visions and goals. There’s no time to think, no time to plan. We end up reacting, rather than creating. A print magazine – solid, tangible, analogue – oers a valuable gift. Time. Time to discover something unexpected. Time to think. And the opportunity to think, deeply and creatively, will be your most valuable business asset in the coming years. The future won’t belong to technologists and engineers. It will belong to thinkers. So whether you’re a YouTuber, a major lifestyle brand, a small business with a video oering, an eSports athlete or even a traditional broadcaster, we welcome you to our first issue of FEED . Flip through it, keep it a while, sit with it, use it as an excuse to think – about your business, about the future, about how to better serve your users and your stakeholders. Let us know how we can help.
EDITORIAL EDITOR Neal Romanek +44 (0) 1223 492246 nealromanek@bright-publishing.com CONTRIBUTORS Ann-Marie Corvin Heather McLean Adrian Pennington SENIOR SUB EDITOR Lisa Clatworthy SUB EDITORS Jo Ruddock Siobhan Godwood Felicity Evans ADVERTISING SALES DIRECTOR Matt Snow +44 (0) 1223 499453 mattsnow@bright-publishing.com SALES MANAGER Krishan Parmar +44 (0) 1223 499462 krishanparmar@bright-publishing.com
DESIGN DESIGN DIRECTOR
Andy Jennings DESIGN MANAGER Alan Gray DESIGNERS Flo Thomas, Man-Wai Wong, Mark George PUBLISHING MANAGING DIRECTORS Andy Brogden & Matt Pluck
NEAL ROMANEK, EDITOR
nealromanek@bright-publishing.com @rabbitandcrow nromanek
BRIGHT PUBLISHING LTD, BRIGHT HOUSE, 82 HIGH STREET, SAWSTON, CAMBRIDGESHIRE CB22 3HJ UK
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CONTENTS
07 NEWSFEED
The latest news from around the media tech ecosystem
10 YOUR TAKE
Niche markets for OTT success
12 STREAMPUNK
COVER STORY: XTREME Delivering the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics to the world, plus a look back at 90 years of Olympics broadcasting history
Inside YouTube Space London 18 STREAMPUNK: TOOL OF THE MONTH Shooting wireless with NewTek’s Connect Spark 20 CONTENT FOCUS We go live-streaming with Groovy Gecko 34 TECHFEED This month’s tech focus is 5G. Will superfast networks change everything? 40 GENIUS INTERVIEW
ESL UK’s James Dean talks about the future of eSports
48 THE LIVE LIFE
Streaming company LiveArena brings youth sports to the world
53 STARTUP ALLEY
Three new media tech companies you need to know about
60 FUTURESHOCK
MadHive is using blockchain to revolutionise advertising
62 HAPPENING
Connected Media Europe: a new streaming confab for BVE
66 OVER THE TOP
Tempted by tech? Always be willing to walk away
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BREAKING NEWS FROM THE STREAMING SECTOR
CES GETS DOWN TO BUSINESS This year’s CES show in Las Vegas ISTOCK.COM/WOODKERN
showed signs of leaving behind its B2C roots and becoming a B2B show – such was the assessment of the UK’s Digital Production Partnership (DPP). The DPP has taken an interest in the development of CES as a bellwether for TV industry trends, and has produced analyses of the show for the past three years, including a look back at the show’s development since 2010. The report observed that voice assistance and speech recognition was the breakthrough tech this year and that
VOICE CONTROL WILL REVOLUTIONISE HOWWE FIND CONTENT THE REPORT’S KEY FINDINGS: ■ Voice assistance and speech recognition dominated CES 2018. Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa are being integrated with TV’s and will radically alter the media industry. ■ CES 2018 was the show where B2B outweighed B2C, as many companies left the relationship with the consumer to the tech giants, and focused on specific business opportunities. ■ One eect of the focus on business-to-business products was that new consumer products from the major manufacturers were thin on the ground at CES 2018. ■ China is up and coming. The most likely competitors for Google, Amazon and Apple are going to be their Chinese equivalents, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent. ■ Home robots are starting to become a reality – but as tools for the workshop, not the living room.
voice search for content, would be game- changing. “Voice control, implemented in voice assistants and TVs, will revolutionise how we find content,” said DPP managing director Mark Harrison. “The winners and losers are as yet unknown, but with younger consumers already comfortable with both voice interface and with online video, I know where I’m putting my money.”
The line between consumer and business showed signs of blurring at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, the world’s largest trade show, convention and exhibition
8 NEWSFEED
SINCLAIR MOVES PLAYOUT TO PUBLIC CLOUD
HUAWEI’S NEW SERVICE FOR SPAIN & ITALY
Sinclair Broadcast Group (SBG) is moving playout of its KidsClick block of children’s programming fully into the public cloud. The new implementation went live in October and is one of the first times a major US broadcaster has moved a critical operation to a fully virtualised public cloud environment. It is hoped the cloud-native and geo-dispersed environment will allow SBG greater agility, scalability and flexibility. KidsClick is a three-hour block which airs daily on a number of SBG stations. By centralising the playout and ad traicking operations of KidsClick in a virtualised environment using commercialm o-the-shelf equipment, SBG aims to deliver programming and advertising tailored to the requirements of individual ailiates. “The scalability and customisation capabilities that the public cloud approach oers is unlike anything we could do using a traditional, on-premises model,” said founding at the end of 2015. Both organisations have worked separately to promote a standards- based approach to IP interoperability. MNA has been focused on the AES67 open standard for audio over IP and audio over ethernet. Its membership has consisted of companies in the broadcast, pro audio, pro AV and installation markets. In the past two years, AIMS and MNA have executed a formal liaison agreement and cooperated in promoting AES67 technology. The AES67 standard was published by the Audio Engineering Society in 2013. It is designed to enable interoperability between IP-based audio networking systems such as RAVENNA,
Brazil. group of industry leaders,” said Rich Zwiebel, chairman of the MNA. “As AIMS, we will be able to provide a more compelling message to the industry, assuring true industry-wide audio/video IP interoperability across the broadcast, installed systems and live sound markets.” Livewire, Q-LAN and Dante. The organisations hope the merger will improve coordination in creating new IP standards in the broadcast and audio market segments, which have in the past run the risk of developing in siloes. “With the merging of the organisations, we have a larger voice and a single place for technical and marketing discussions amongst a larger Del Parks, CTO of SBG. “And since we’re only delivering this programming for a few hours a day, the flexibility of originating in the public cloud is a far superior alternative to purchasing traditional equipment that would sit idle for many hours at a time.” Imagine Communications’ Versio Platform underlies KidsClick operations. Versio is a software-only, cloud-native playout solution for fully virtualised environments, both private and public. In the KidsClick model, an instance of Versio, running a unique playlist and ad load, is assigned to each time zone. The deployment also uses Imagine’s SelenioFlex File, a file-based processing solution running in the public cloud. SelenioFlex File resources can be applied to pre-produced KidsClick content requiring transcoding, format conversion, bit-rate adjustments, audio processing or other modifications before being played out.
Chinese telecommunications company Huawei is launching an OTT streaming video service in Spain and Italy. The new platform, Huawei Video, will be rolled out this quarter only on Huawei and Huawei’s Honor smartphones. The service will oer both internationial and local content, as well as free trailers and documentaries. Huawei has made content deals with Spanish media companies, including Atresmedia, A3Media and Under The Milky Way. The company has indicated interest in expanding the roll-out to other European countries. IP TRADE ORGS JOIN FORCES The Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS) is merging with the Media Networking Alliance (MNA) to form a single trade association for promoting IP-based infrastructure in the media and entertainment industry. The combined organisation will keep the AIMS banner and continue under the existing AIMS by-laws. The two groups have been in an informal collaboration since AIMS’
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9 NEWSFEED
Accedo is using Google Cloud to help media and entertainment companies access a single, unified cloud platform. Accedo Studio, operating on Google Cloud, aims to help companies build customisable video experiences by creating or updating user interfaces across all devices. The interfaces can be made unique to a specific brand experience and appropriate for the infrastructure and organisation of the business. The cloud-based UX management tools of Accedo Studio allow video channel managers for fine-tuning and iterative development of customer experience, informed by audience data gathered in real time. Accedo Studio oers Standard, Professional and Pay TV levels of features. ACCEDO STUDIO MAKES FOR FLEXIBLE UX
BRAZILIAN TELECOMS USE TV U FOR OTT
OTT media services company TV2U has helped Brazilian partners SOL Telecom and CCSTV launch new OTT entertainment platforms. TV2U oers a platform that enables companies to provide OTT streaming services to their customers. The platform is pre-loaded with content including movies TV programming, karaoke content and games. TV2U oers a cloud-based service hub for end-to-end Internet delivery of live and on-demand content, including ingest and encoding, analytics, personalised advertising, DRM
and global delivery through thrid-party CDNs. The company has completed deployment with the integration of the head-end at both SOL Telecom’s and CCSTV’s facilities with TV2U’s content management services. The first service oering will feature 100 live channels of premium and local content, with planned growth of more than 250 channels, plus on-demand content. After its initial launch to customers of SOL Telecom and CCSTV, the service will expand nationally across
10 YOUR TAKE Simplestream
OTT CLIMATE GOES CLOUDY Want to be a success in the Words by Dan Finch, chief commercial of cer, Simplestream
here is no denying that recent years have seen a hugely competitive OTT climate develop, with Netflix, Amazon and Hulu leading the way.
new OTT content marketplace? Choose a niche and stick to it. And use the cloud
A report from Statista showed that the number of digital video users worldwide is expected to reach over 800 million by 2021 – with Netflix, Hulu and Amazon accounting for 30% of this total. Digital TV Research predicted the number of global Netflix subscribers will rise to 128 million by 2022 – an increase of 44% from 89 million at the end of 2016 – with international subscribers due to exceed US ones by early this year. The growth and monopoly that these video giants have built has encouraged new services to enter the market – all competing for viewer attention. There are now nearly 200 SVOD services in the US and Canada alone and it’s hard
DAN FINCH: The incumbents make it diicult for new entrants to gain - and keep - a foothold in a market that continues to evolve.
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11 YOUR TAKE Simplestream
to remember a week in which a network or studio doesn’t announce the launch or expansion of a video service – 60 of which were introduced last year. Yet despite the rise of SVOD, there have already been some casualties. If we look at services such as Fullscreen, Vimeo SVOD, Seeso and Cox’s o erings, Flarekids and Flareme TV, we see big companies spending huge amounts of money on content, infrastructure and ongoing support, but in the end they have been wound down. This back-pedalling has been due either to a change in strategy or, in Cox’s case, because the operational running costs were too high to make a viable business – even with more than 300,000 subscribers. This demonstrates that the OTT market is not a video delivery utopia, as online engagement increasingly fragments. The incumbents make it di icult for new entrants to gain – and keep – a foothold in a market that continues to evolve. MIDiA research found that SVOD accounts for 10.5% of all online video engagement with much of the growth in video consumption being routed through messaging apps that account for 6.5 billion monthly active users – over twice the number of website users at 3 billion and social network users at 2.6 billion. successfully. However, niche services providing very specific, bespoke content have a much better chance by providing something that is either not available on mainstream services or is much more di icult to find. In an increasingly sophisticated digital marketplace, niche services provide the opportunity for platforms to monetise underserved consumer interests. However, it’s critical that these operators can tackle issues including monetisation, e ective asset management, e icient turnaround time to market, multiplatform delivery and content licensing fees, which all combine to make it challenging for niche platforms to launch and prosper. NWSL Media is one such niche platform that is prospering. As a worldwide sport, women’s soccer has a huge fan base in the US and this is growing globally. The US National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) realised that new strategies were needed to cost- e ectively improve its outreach and give viewers more power in where and how they watched games. Having previously used YouTube to stream games, NWSL simply wasn’t getting the best out of It’s therefore di icult for new mainstream services to launch
leveraging agile strategies that can adapt to rapidly reflect market demands. TRACE is another such example. Urban music and entertainment- focused broadcaster TRACE is a niche operator known as a voice for young African talent and a global driver of afro- urban entertainment. Attuned to evolving video industry shifts, the content owner and provider decided the time was right to invest in a global, all-encompassing, multi-device platform. Partnered with Simplestream, TRACE built a content o ering of 21 paid TV channels, four FM radio stations and over 30 digital and mobile services online. The key to building a successful niche service is to deliver unique content with a reliable user experience through e icient tech. Streamlining the ingest, storing, editing and layout of content through a single unified cloud-based workflow enables content providers to deliver high-quality and diverse video services to millions of consumers flexibly, at low incremental cost and at scale. The cloud brings many benefits, including improvements in scalability, QoS, OPEX, streaming quality, ad insertion, deployment speeds across multiple territories, minimising upfront costs and creating more personalised channel o erings. This then paves the way for more investment to be redirected to licensing, marketing and content development. The cloud enables niche operators to launch services quickly and e iciently with premium content at a fraction of the cost of legacy broadcast solutions.
its broadcasting potential – both in its outreach and monetisation. A+E Networks saw the potential in NWSL’s fan base and invested in the league in January 2017, creating a joint venture called NWSL Media. With A+E’s breadth of experience, the new venture would handle the broadcasting rights, production, website and sponsorship of its properties. However, A+E wanted to bet on the league at a time when women’s soccer had the potential to really take o . With a growing fan base nationally and internationally, one of the biggest issues A+E had was how to ensure this interest was being met through services that fans could seamlessly access and engage with. The result was that Simplestream built a multiscreen streaming service that now enables fans to watch over 120 live matches per season in high definition with synchronised scores, line-ups, play-by- play and box score data. Companies need to be dynamic, forward-thinking and embrace change by THE CLOUD ENABLES NICHE OPERATORS TO LAUNCH SERVICES QUICKLY AND EFFICIENTLY
STREAMPUNK 12 YouTube Spaces
Technology manager for the YouTube Spaces in EMEA, Chris Lock gives us a tour of Google’s versatile new incubator for online talent Words by Neal Romanek GROWING SPACES
he YouTube Spaces are waiting for you! YouTube Spaces provide free studios and equipment for popular YouTubers (‘popular’ is 10,000
ago, originally looking after the technical infrastructure of the first YouTube Space London. “As the aspirations of the community grew, we identified an opportunity to build a next-level facility at our new home in King’s Cross,” remembers Lock. “From being given clean access to the building, we managed to build, partially commission and put on an incredible launch party in around eight weeks, this was only possible due to the flexible design and determination of all involved.” The YouTube Spaces are designed to be labs of sorts, helping the YouTube creative community to flourish by providing top resources to creators and artists. The latest incarnation of YouTube Space London is a 20,000 square foot full-service production facility. YouTube creators with
THE CORE AIMS WERE TO BUILD AN INCREDIBLY FLEXIBLE SPACE THAT ALLOWED FOR A DIVERSE RANGE OF PRODUCTIONS
followers or more). London was chosen as the site of the first YouTube space, opening at Google’s Covent Garden headquarters in July 2012. Since then, a dozen more Spaces have sprung up in major cities, including Berlin, Paris, Mumbai, Tokyo, Toronto, Los Angeles and New York. In August 2016, YouTube Space London was reopened – bigger, better and faster – in new digs at Google’s King’s Cross site. Chris Lock is the technology manager for all YouTube Spaces in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Lock joined the YouTube Spaces team just over four years
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13 STREAMPUNK YouTube Spaces
more than 10,000 followers can learn about production techniques and new technology, experiment with new formats and concepts, and network with a diverse community of creators. As with YouTube itself, the needs of the creators are widely divergent. “The requirements of the community vary from single camera digital cinema workflows, to full live productions including remote participation from our worldwide facilities that are streamed live to the platform,” says Lock. “Artists may need to multitrack a performance or host live gigs for their fans. They may need to launch their latest album live on YouTube. They may even use VR or live motion capture.” And the facilities available in the YouTube Space are indeed impressive.
PRODUCTION CONTROL London’s YouTube Space oers facilities to cope with cope with all kinds of production demands, from live gigs to VR
STREAMPUNK 14 YouTube Spaces
CENTRE STAGE: YouTube Space sound stages include an award-winning lighting installation from Photon Beard
EVERY DECISION WE MAKE IS CENTRED AROUND THE NEEDS AND PREFERENCES OF THE COMMUNITY
“From the very early conception of the project, the core aims were to build an incredibly flexible space that allowed for a diverse range of productions and the unique requirements that come with those. “We frequently consult with creators and artists on the equipment that they will use on a day-to-day basis and have an open line of communication through our production specialists. Every decision we make is centred around the needs and preferences of the community. They are, after all, the rock that keeps the ecosystem alive.” A significant amount of research was conducted on core routing. Lock and the technical team were keen to o er uncompressed live UHD production, and with the increase in bandwidth required, they began evaluating the use of IP. As standards had yet to settle, they decided the most flexible and risk-free approach was to adopt an SDVN solution
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15 STREAMPUNK YouTube Spaces
from Evertz using ASPEN, which has served them well. The Space is now embarking on the migration to the ST2110 standard, which will allow separately routable video and audio over IP networks. The audio subsystem is built around Dante, using the System T 72 fader audio console from Solid State Logic. This gave the team the balance of significant firepower for music production, while also being a very eective TV mixing desk. The space also has a smaller 16 fader junior control available. “Dante gives us the ability to quickly and easily respond to changes in user audio requirements,” says Lock. “Depending on the artist’s preference we can either track to ProTools or Logic in a redundant configuration and we have capacity for a significant amount of outboard equipment. “Our front-of-house systems connect both to the core Dante network as well as local pre’s when required, with them being
able to utilise a redundant pair of Waves SoundGrid Servers.” Distributed RF is available throughout to ensure microphones and IEMs have coverage no matter where you are in the facility. A wide range of microphones is available, from multiple manufacturers, and ample PAs for a full range of artists. The facility is using Ross Acuity vision mixers running in UHD mode. “We are able to share ME resource between each of the switcher panels, allowing us to either operate two smaller live productions at the same time from separate galleries, or combine resources for the larger shows.” The facilities can share low latency baseband video and intercom trunking and employ the Riedel’s Artist system and Bolero for wireless intercom requirements. With that solid infrastructure, YouTube Space London oers a treat box full of production equipment for creators to use.
STAY FLEXIBLE: The Space’s camera gear includes everything from Canon DSLRs to the RED 8K WEAPON.
16 STREAMPUNK YouTube Spaces
SOUND SOLUTIONS The audio control room at YouTube Space London is built around a Dante network
INCUBATORS FOR THE NEXT GENERATION OF STREAMING CONTENT PRODUCTION company developing live and file-based newsgathering solutions for the broadcast market. This gave me a great grounding in IP as well as baseband video. “As the Spaces have grown, I have been fortunate to lead the technical design of all YouTube Spaces across Europe, Middle East and Africa, including Paris, London, Berlin and Dubai.” The world of the streaming video auteur is still in its early stages. The YouTube Spaces will no doubt be incubators for the next generation of streaming content production. So what’s next? “The YouTube Spaces have always, and will continue to lead the way implementing support for new platform features such as 4K and VR180. We have some awesome projects in the works, watch out for announcements!”
In order to accommodate the mix between digital cinema and live workflows, the Space oers Sony’s F55 cameras, with the broadcast module. The flexible Sony cinema cameras operate over SMPTE hybrid fibre, allowing the team to change location easily for live production, as well as using them for digital cinema workflows. “Each creator has dierent needs and preferences. We try to oer as much choice as possible whilst also giving the opportunity to experiment with equipment they would otherwise struggle to access,” says Lock. The Space oers a wide range of production gear, ranging from DSLRs such as the Sony A7S and the Canon EOS 5D – Canons have become a tool of choice for many YouTubers – all the way to high-end digital cinema such as the RED 8K WEAPON. There is also a stock of 360 cameras, such as the Yi Halo that uses the Jump Assembler, as well as ambisonic microphones for recording immersive audio. As you would expect from YouTube, the Space is well networked. “Our production IP networks are all based on 10GbE,” says Lock. “We have used
pre-terminated MTP trunk cables to flood wire the facility, this gives us the flexibility to add I/O and even extend our intercom and wireless RF system wherever the need arises. “We are using redundant high bit rate J2K contribution lines to interconnect the facilities worldwide, we currently have end-to-end sub 100ms latency between Los Angeles and London. And we are able to distribute back to the platform at UHD resolutions using a redundant pair of RTMP encoders.” Perhaps not surprisingly, Chris Lock doesn’t come from a traditional systems integration background – or even from a streaming video background. “I have a very non-traditional background in terms of production engineering, I actually began my career working for a
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18 STREAMPUNK Tool of the month
Words by Neal Romanek EASY REMOTE VIDEO WITH SPARK
Product Name: Connect Spark Company: NewTek Price: $499 for Connect Spark HDMI; $700 for Connect Spark SDI
ewTek’s products have been a boon to the streaming sector.
Its TriCaster has become a workflow workhorse for the micro-broadcaster. In 2015, the company introduced its Network Device Interface (NDI) standard, which allowed video tools to send back and forth high-resolution video through any IP network. The royalty-free protocol was quickly adopted by online video producers – to the chagrin of trade organisations trying to develop unified, non-proprietary standards. Last year, NewTek released the Connect Spark. The Spark is a piece of compact, plug-and-play hardware for delivering SDI or HDMI video anywhere over an IP network. The Connect Spark can send a digital video source to the network in HD, with NDI output and support for resolutions up to 1080p at 60 frames-per-second. Using either Ethernet or Wi-Fi the Spark can be available as an input source for an NDI-compatible device or application. Cameras, switchers and microphones only need to be connected to the network for the Spark to be able to access them. Users can monitor video, access audio and video settings and manage permissions through a browser-based control panel, and the Connect Spark can be designated as an input source for desktop video applications, such as Google Hangouts, GoToMeeting, Skype, WebEx and Zoom.
The Connect Spark is available in two models – one for HDMI input, the other, a bit more expensive, for SDI input. After some months on the market, the Connect Spark has had good uptake by companies needing easy and flexible ways to import video into their network. Remote productions are especially benefiting. A typical use case is the work of Brazilian live-streaming company JupiterReturn. “Our Rio de Janeiro oice was tasked with conveying the overall feel of staying at a luxury hotel along the beach in Copacabana,” says JupiterReturn executive producer/director Victor Borachuk. “The deliverable was a basic one-camera 4K stream connected directly into our TriCaster TC-1. But we felt this didn’t allow viewers to experience elements such as the hotel restaurant, the rooftop pool deck, the concierge service or the gym overlooking the beach. Using NDI and Connect Spark boxes, we chose a few locations within the hotel, put them on a VLAN, and gave viewers a live tour of the hotel and a bit of the neighbourhood.” The plug-and-play usability of the Spark makes it appropriate for non-
professional use. “The Connect Spark allows us to walk around our entire campus, using our Wi-Fi network to send live video from our cameras back to our studio,” says David R Burgess, director of the digital media production department at a private school in Florida. “It has simplified our set-up for live sports coverage. We no longer have to spend hours pulling fibre optics to cameras.” The most recent version of the Spark includes a Virtual PTZ feature, which allows users to select and create multiple shots from a single, full- resolution video signal. The selections can then be stored as presets. The feature oers live virtual zoom and pan control throughout the frame. A Multicast Mode has also been added, which allows multiple destinations to receive the Connect Spark video source without having to establish individual point-to-point connections, resulting in thriftier consumption of network bandwidth. The latest iteration also oers an external LTC time code reference for embedding time code into the Connect Spark video signal for synchronisation with other NDI video signals.
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19 NEXT MONTH The New Reality
FINDING YOUR WAY AROUND
VIRTUAL REALITY
VR, AR, MR & ?
Video has become a vital tool of university and youth education. Webinars and online tutorials are an industry in themselves. Learn more in our Education Special! EDUCATION & ELEARNING
CONTENT BY AI
Immersed in video, social media and data of all kinds, some would say we’re already living in an augmented reality. What’s the next step? VR glasses may be just the start
Artificial intelligence is already being used to analyse content and viewer data, but how long until AI starts creating content? And why would we want it to?
20 CONTENT FOCUS Live Streaming
FEELING Words by Adrian Pennington
It takes more than a camera and an Internet connection to create a successful live-streaming production
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21 CONTENT FOCUS Live Streaming
hether it be for marketing purposes, as a supplement to traditional broadcasting, to increase access to live events or for fun among a private group, live video streaming is adding another component to the way
information is communicated. But live streaming is not as easy as you might first imagine. Even the simplest content has an aspect of risk. Errors in the stream are diicult to hide given the live nature of the content, and viewers won’t wait around if there’s an interruption in the stream. Live video streaming is composed of a chain of interlocking parts, including production, connectivity, encoding, CDN and delivery services. These and other elements are being increasingly oered as a package by streaming media companies, some of which also provide bespoke online video players and stream analytics. sub-broadcast quality stream. Video production and live-streaming company Streaming Tank, whose clients include i24News and Eurosport, use Sony EX3 and PMW- 300 and Canon EOS C300 cameras for capture – and have access to larger ENG cameras and capabilities for 4K for more complex events. For its bigger productions or locations with poor network signals, Streaming Tank even runs its own OB truck which oers access to a Dawson Tooway satellite as well as integrated connectivity, vision and sound equipment, including BlackMagic Design’s ATEM Television Studio live production switcher and HyperDeck Studio recorder. Streaming Tank uses a mix of in-house kit and expertise plus external partners and freelancers to put together a video production service to fit the event – from lean single- camera solutions to complex, dynamic shoots required in stadiums, festivals and outdoor events. PRODUCTION These days there’s nothing acceptable about a
DEMANDING AUDIENCE Viewers will not accept any interruption in the stream – even of just a few seconds
CONNECTIVITY Once a video and sound team are in place some companies may want to utilise stand-alone connectivity solutions as a way to get the on-site video stream from venue out to the internet. “In the simplest set-up this means having our own engineers on-site with our encoders connected to a stable broadband connection, but that is not always possible so we work with a number of alternatives,” says Jake Ward, business development director at live-stream specialist Groovy Gecko. These connectivity alternatives include: Satellite bandwidth: Streaming media producers with expertise in IP-over-satellite can set up an on-site broadband connection good enough to stream your webcast with full redundancy. Satellite/fibre acquisition: When the video signal is already being uplinked to a satellite or transmitted over fibre to BT Tower, producers can bring the signal down into a partner satellite acquisition centre and encode your webcast from there. Mobile multiplexing: For webcasting on the move or in diicult environments, backpacks are the best option. LiveU’s units, for example, merge together multiple 3G, 4G and wireless signals and output a high-quality video stream that can be acquired at the streaming provider’s hub and encoded for your webcast. Smaller, lightweight THEY ASSUME THAT A STRONG INTERNET CONNECTION FOR THINGS LIKE WEB BROWSING WILL BE THE SAME FOR LIVE STREAMING
CASE STUDY: BAFTA At the end of last year, Groovy Gecko live-streamed the
beyond that of a static, non- live stream. By combining the eect of live video and the 360° feature, viewers had extended access to an exclusive event and got to follow the celebrities as they walked the red carpet.” After only an hour, Virgin Media’s stream had attracted around one and a half times more viewers than the live stream on the oicial BAFTA Facebook page, which did not feature 360° interactivity. “This suggests our 360 video was more attractive to viewers than a simple live stream, which would not have aorded the same type of immersion for viewers,” says Ward.
Virgin TV BAFTA Television Awards 2017. Interviews from the star-studded red carpet were delivered directly to Virgin Media’s Facebook page, in interactive 360 video. This allowed viewers to look around the red carpet as though they were on it and alter their viewpoint by physically moving their mobile device or using a mouse on a computer/laptop. “The beauty of a 360 stream is the amount of freedom it gives to the audience,” says Jake Ward. “This makes for a highly interactive and immersive experience, far
22 CONTENT FOCUS Live Streaming
HOW DOES A CDN WORK? CDNs are made up of a large number of server farms around the world joined together by ultra-fast connections. When a file is uploaded to a local server for viewing on-demand it is rapidly duplicated across all the CDN’s servers. You can upload a file in London, and when it is replicated, a user in New York will be accessing it from a local server in New York. This means that there are multiple copies of your content on servers around the world, and that ensures 100% availability. For example, if servers in London were down, the users in London might be served their file from Frankfurt. There might be a negligible drop in performance, but the file would still be available. One advantage of working through a CDN is redundancy. “You have the output you want to broadcast going into two dierent encoders then publishing hopefully through two dierent internet connections to two dierent places on the CDN,” says Ward. “That means that if something on the CDN goes down and you’re publishing through London, and London has an outage, your signal is still being sent via Bristol, via a dierent internet connection. “On CDNs, that seamlessly falls over, and the audience never knows that they’re suddenly accessing a secondary stream – the stream just continues as it was. Facebook and other social platforms only have a primary stream in, so we’ve done a lot of work to create a secondary
units, such as the company’s LU200, permit camera ops to wear them and move easily. More robust models like the LU500 can bond up to eight network connections, while being combined with the LiveU extender and providing up to 20Mbps. Streaming media producers will also partner with a CDN, or several of them for redundancy, to deliver the live stream anywhere in the world. “Quite often, we’re working with a production company,” explains Groovy Gecko’s Ward. “They give us a TX, their live output from their camera mix, and then it’s split (for safety reasons) into two or more encoders, which encode that stream into a suitable video format. “Maybe we’ll add in other interactive elements like live polling on Facebook Live. Then those live streams, once they’re complete, are sent to what’s called a publishing point – that’s on a standard CDN, something like Akamai – and then going onto the client’s own page or, more commonly these days, a publishing point on something like Periscope, Facebook Live or YouTube. “Of course, you can run a very simple low stream o a single server that a company may be hosting, but as soon as that hits a certain number of viewers everything’s going to start to fall apart. From a CDN point of view, we use people like Akamai, which delivers a considerable portion of streaming on the Internet. If that goes down and fails to work we’ve all got much bigger problems.”
ON POINT Longer-form content that is important to your target audience and enables interaction is likely to perform well in a live stream
LIVE SOCIAL
The functionality of live social platforms has enabled brands to move away from live videos delivered by smartphone to professionally produced multi-camera interactive streams. At the outset it’s important to consider what types of content will work best as live social streams. The key thing to remember is: just because something is happening live doesn’t mean it has to be a live stream. There are only three reasons why content should be live-streamed: 1 The event or content delivered via the live stream is of such importance to your target audience that they’ll want to see it as it happens – for example, a major new product launch or a unique live event. 2 The content of the live stream allows the audience to interact live, such as asking a well-known expert a question. 3 Content is delivered over social but connected to traditional broadcast channels, for example an advert on TV which directs users to view a live stream for more interactivity. “The data we’ve gathered from producing hundreds of live video streams for Facebook Live has shown
that if content does not come under one of these three categories it is unlikely to deliver a large viewership,” says Jake Ward. “Therefore, it should simply be delivered as on-demand content, as this reduces risk and allows the content to be more precisely crafted.” Regardless of the content, Groovy Gecko suggests that, contrary to the accepted wisdom that social content should be short, with live social streaming, longer content is actually much more eective.
“The core audience who have liked and engaged with your brand page are more willing to watch content for longer if it’s interactive, or it can deliver a unique live experience,” says Ward. “Additionally, the nature of sharing and liking of live video posts means that longer streams work more eectively. Live streams also feature more prominently in user’s timelines when they are live.” Groovy Gecko data suggests that streams lasting over 20 minutes reach a much larger proportion of audiences.
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24 CONTENT FOCUS Live Streaming
workflow to enable that. For security purposes most of the social networks are now looking at adding a primary and secondary stream which will have seamless cross over. “If a live stream of a major brand goes down, then it’s serious. It really is not just looking at the technical solution, it’s looking at the areas of risk. You have to sit down in a planning meeting from a content point of view and a technical point of view.” Most often, the issue with bandwidth is purely making sure that it is strong enough to handle a high-quality stream. “Many clients tend to forget about the importance of a strong Internet connection when it comes to getting live content osite,” says Ward. “They assume that a strong Internet connection for things like web browsing means that it will be the same for live streaming, but this isn’t the case. They may have a speed of 100MB, but when a building full of people are draining the bandwidth, it often gets squeezed to considerably lower. We get around this when handling a stream by physically sending an engineer to test a venue’s broadband signal.” Then there’s the added worry of the rise of live 360 video in 4K. On the one hand, shooting 360 footage in 4K is clearly beneficial for the medium, increasing the quality and therefore the viewer experience, but it requires more bandwidth. You will want to ensure the average viewer is able to enjoy a stream even without a 15MB connection. Part of this involves degrading streams for those who lack the bandwidth to stream 4K. FACEBOOK WILL AUTOMATICALLY KILL A STREAM IN UNDER TEN SECONDS IF IT DETECTS ANY COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL COPYRIGHTPERMISSIONS Whilst most people can appreciate the importance of getting the right permissions to use copyrighted material, many are not aware of how long this process can take, and how sensitive social networks are to any form of copyright infringement. Both Facebook and YouTube have sophisticated monitoring systems to detect copyrighted material, and if something isn’t cleared properly, you can bet they will know about it. YouTube oers a ‘three strikes and you’re out’ policy, but Facebook will automatically kill a stream in under ten seconds if it detects any copyrighted material which the streamer does not have the rights to use. “The problem is, these systems are so sensitive that even a copyrighted piece of music played accidentally could take a stream o air,” says Ward. “I’ve had situations in the past where everything is copyrighted, but someone has driven past in a car playing a radio track, and I’ve got a strike on YouTube. Copyright is really a big issue at the moment, often not looked at and not cleared properly by the brands. It takes time. Facebook takes five or six days to clear a music track for use on a stream. If you’re trying to do something really quickly, you may hit problems.”
RUN LOLA RUN StreamAMG streams football matches using its proprietary encoder Lola. Clients include UK’s Derby Country and Ukraine’s Shakhtar Donetsk
CASE STUDY: STREAM AMG DELIVERS CHAMPIONSHIP FOOTBALL StreamAMG takes charge of the live web streaming for a string of European soccer clubs, including Shakhtar Donetsk and AC Sparta Prague, as well as institutions such as sessions of the UK Supreme Court and the European Council, which unites a single video feed with 32 audio feeds. The company also works with a growing number of Championship football clubs in the UK, including Derby County, to stream home matches internationally. In all these cases, StreamAMG takes the produced feed and passes it through its own low-latency encoder, Lola. “We have two installed on-site at each football club we work for – a primary and a backup,” explains Duncan Burbidge, CEO of StreamAMG. “We get handed the SDI feed from the OB supplied by the club. We take in that single SDI feed and create MPEG Dash and HLS versions and apply a digital rights management licence within Lola. We might also provide a personal stream for the club owners (Lola can handle 18 streams at once).” All this activity is monitored remotely from StreamAMG’s network operations centre in Stratford, London. The feeds are ingested to the NOC from satellite and fibre links either direct or via London’s BT Tower along with ISDN (all audio comms still use this old-school telephony) before being rebroadcast via CDN. “The ability to monitor all encoders simultaneously is a big plus,” says Burbidge. “We’re doing HD standardly at 1080p. We could go UHD at 4-6Mbps but we are not seeing demand for it. UHD would get more expensive and, given the kind of money you can generate from advertising and pay-per-view, a big chunk would be taken out by bandwidth required for UHD.”
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IGITAL ICE Coverage of the Olympic Games is evolving to meet bigger audiences in better ways Words by Neal Romanek DIGITAL ICE 28 XTREME Olympics
port broadcast has always been an early adopter of new tech. Fans want to be ever more connected to the action, and broadcasters are in an arms
broadcast approach across all the Games at the highest standards of production. OBS produces all Olympics coverage, including providing the International Television and Radio (ITVR) signals of the Games, and designing, building, installing, operating – and dismantling – the International Broadcast Centre (IBC). Part of the OBS mandate is to adapt to meet the requirements of new technology. This year’s Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea oered new opportunities for new platforms. “In the past decade, the growth of digital platforms, new technologies and cloud- based services have revolutionised the way the sports broadcast industry produces and delivers content,” says Sotiris Salamouris, OBS chief technical oicer.
race to stay ahead of the competition. The Olympic Games is always in a balancing act when it comes to new technology. The diversity of Olympic events, the wealth of stories and the global nature of its audience, stretching out over a two-week period, oers unparalleled opportunities to reach viewers in new and better ways. However, the defining features of the Olympics brand are excellence and quality. Olympics coverage can’t aord a single technical hiccup and while a trial for a new online service may run beautifully in Seoul, you’re in for trouble if you expect the same results in Cuba. Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) was created by the International Olympic Committee in 2001 to be the Host Broadcasting organisation for all Olympics Games – Summer, Winter and the Youth Games. The organisation, headquartered in Madrid, is dedicated to a consistent
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29 XTREME Olympics
OLYMPICS BROADCASTING HISTORY
PARIS First radio broadcast of Olympic Games
BERLIN First TV broadcast, sent to public television oices in Berlin and Potsdam
LONDON Games are broadcast within a 50-mile radius of London
30 XTREME Olympics
“In 2006, in Turin, the Host Broadcaster provided nearly 1000 hours of live content,” says Salamouris. “Twelve years later, OBS delivered a record 4000 hours of live coverage from Pyeongchang. The delivery of the Games has significantly improved in sophistication and picture quality – with two- and four-point cablecam systems, point-of-view cameras and drones. OBS has also supported new broadcast formats, such as 4K and 8K, and is producing an extensive volume of live competition content in both formats.” NEW INITIATIVES Compared to the Sochi Winter Games in 2014, the variety of content produced at Pyeongchang was much wider, and content was pushed far more quickly and more eiciently in multiple formats to a variety of channels. Native 4K coverage was produced for a large number of sports, including curling, figure skating, freestyle skiing (aerials, moguls and halfpipe), ice hockey, speed skating, and the opening and closing ceremonies, while Japanese broadcaster NHK produced 8K coverage for the opening ceremony, figure skating, short track speed skating, ski jumping and snowboard big air. “At Pyeongchang, there were a series of new initiatives that were taken to facilitate RHB’s (Rights Holding Broadcasters)
TOTAL OUTGOING CAPACITY WAS SEVERAL HUNDRED GIGABITS PER SECOND, EQUIVALENT TO THE TOTAL OUTGOING INTERNET CAPACITY OF A SMALL COUNTRY
hundred gigabits per second, equivalent to the total outgoing Internet capacity of a small country.
operations, especially on the digital front,” says Salamouris. “RHBs could receive the international signal over an IP network or use web-based file transfer solutions to send their footage back to their home countries, enabling them to run part of their operations remotely and with greater flexibility than in the past. “The contribution fibre network connecting all the venues to the IBC was the largest ever, composed of hundreds of dedicated fibre circuits which enabled the transport of an unprecedented number of live HD, 4K and 8K signals, without any compression.” PyeongChang 2018 was the most connected in the history of the Olympic Winter Games. International distribution was carried out through connectivity to five international points of presence around the world. Total outgoing capacity was several
RESHAPING OLYMPIC BROADCASTING
High-speed Winter Olympics events lend themselves to extreme coverage. Aerial and ground-level tracking cameras have become indispensable, allowing audiences to follow speed skaters or accompany cross-country skiers through gruelling miles. Helmet cameras on ski and snowboard cross started appearing in 2010, and in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics the first drones were used. Now the emergence of new technologies such as virtual reality are reshaping sports broadcasting. OBS oered VR and panoramic video production of selected live and recorded
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