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ROUND TABLE
approach. We not only did the broadcast, but the technology on the boats and the race management system. We already had some remote solutions installed, with remote engineering and data logging on the boats, plus the cloud was a remote solution. We also had remote edit suites operating in Europe that could create news feeds overnight. Nonetheless, due to restrictions, not a single broadcaster was able to go to the event last year. We used Telstra’s redundant fibre to feed out to local broadcasters. Steven and I spent a lot of time on the phone between Auckland and where he was in Sydney, trying to figure things out. In the end, we used everything we had, because the local broadcasters asked for so many things: individual signals, a different voiceover and other unilateral services. We were flat out. That’s something we need to learn. Infrastructures and set-up need to be prepared for big events in the future. NORBERT PAQUET: One thing has been the production planning and coordination of resource. Usually, the main conversation is around latency management: how do we manage the different latencies introduced by remote or distributed operation? Communication is fundamental to everything. As soon as you introduce latency into communication, it impacts the entire production and value chain. We’ve looked at solutions that manage the overall set of latencies introduced by the different paths the audio takes, and then how you resynchronise that in the end. We had discussions with customers around codecs and compression ratios, because bandwidth is also an element to consider. Some people have one gig uplink – some don’t – so you must pay attention to that.
NEAL ROMANEK: What has been some of your practical remote
production experience recently?
STEVEN DARGHAM: For the America’s Cup last year, we had two of the events in Europe cancelled due to Covid-19. We ended up doing the America’s Cup without a single person from Telstra on-site. TIM PUSCHKEIT: Riedel worked on the America’s Cup project, too. We started four years ago. The plan was to do a series in six or seven different venues across Europe and the US. We even did recce missions and site visits. Instead, we spent six months in Auckland, New Zealand. But, in that time, we did prototype engineering. It was challenging, because we follow a 360-degree “WE HAD REMOTE EDIT SUITES IN EUROPE THAT COULD CREATE NEWS FEEDS OVERNIGHT”
that you learn from possible failure, then you move forward. TIM PUSCHKEIT: Big events, like the Super Bowl, Olympics or World Cup – where you have a production of four weeks – will remain on-site. Maybe you can share synergies, using established remote production units as well, but a lot of things will still happen on-site. For the events that come back on a weekly, monthly or annual period, with a more or less standardised set-up, I definitely see remote production as the future. STEVEN DARGHAM: It was always something broadcasters wanted. We’d come in and do workshops and trials. They would discuss it, but it never got to the working stage. Now, it’s a necessity. Last year’s Tokyo Olympics were completely different. Every single broadcaster we were involved with did everything from back at home, with nothing at the International Broadcast Centre. They’re changing the workflow. Keep in mind, we couldn’t do that without an advancement in the underlying technology and telco infrastructure.
A shore thing: America’s Cup coverage was executed from remote cities
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