Category: Broadcast & Playout

HUBER+SUHNER launches optical switching system for improved transmission performance at IBC 2019

Posted on by contentntek in Broadcast & Playout, Distribution & Delivery, News, Radio & Audio, Satellite & Transmissions

With combined expertise in radio frequency and fiber optics, HUBER+SUHNER offers comprehensive customised solutions for broadcasters around the globe. The latest innovations from HUBER+SUHNER include Polatis optical switches in the broadcast environment, combined with further capabilities as fiber optics and RF-over-fiber (RFoF) systems to reliably transfer high volumes of data. The HUBER+SUHNER broadcast portfolio ensures high-quality performance, reliability and longevity to provide broadcast operators with a complete package to address the increasing industry demands.

“With the advance of IP video and the increasing video resolution like 4K, 8K and beyond, among other challenges, we understand that a high-performing fiber system is crucial to broadcast performance,” says Giovana Labegalini, Application Engineer at HUBER+SUHNER. “Working with the HUBER+SUHNER team, our broadcast customers benefit from our expertise in integrating both fiber optic and radio frequency technologies to offer a holistic and customisable approach for their individual broadcast needs.”

With vast amounts of data to be transferred, the performance of optical systems has to be heavily relied on to ensure high-quality signal transportation every time. In indoor and outdoor environments, HUBER+SUHNER cables and components are resilient and can withstand many environmental conditions to transmit the necessary high-quality signals.

For critical broadcast performance such as live transmissions, it is key to transfer data signals with reliability and flexibility. Attendees at IBC 2019 will be able to witness the innovation of the broadcast portfolio first-hand with a live demonstration of the HUBER+SUHNER Polatis Optical Switches. Our switches provide fiber layer automation and management of high-bandwidth audio, video and data signals for broadcast, post production, and outside broadcast applications with the ability to add further functionality according to the customer needs, such as Optical Power Monitors for monitoring signal power levels, Automatic Protection Switching to avoid equipment failure in case of fiber breaks and Variable Optical Attenuation for attenuating system power levels.

With the many fiber optic cables needed to manage large volumes of data, an effective fiber management system is critical to broadcast performance. HUBER+SUHNER fiber management systems simplify the challenge of managing cables. Comprising of LISA cross connect systems and IANOS® systems the management systems support high density connectivity, modularity and the appropriate cable handling. The systems enable fiber to seamlessly combine data rates from 1G to 400G, tailored to each broadcaster’s needs with a pay-as-you-grow flexible approach.

“HUBER+SUHNER has been providing solutions to the broadcast industry for a number of years and over this time we have come to understand the ever-increasing demands and challenges our customers have to face,” added Labegalini. “We are excited to provide broadcast operators with a complete package to address these challenges and look forward to showcasing them at IBC.”

Attendees of IBC 2019 (Hall 5, B14) can watch the complete HUBER+SUHNER broadcast portfolio in a life demonstration during the event.

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Casablanca Online successfully enables live broadcasts of Copa America with SES and Newtec Dialog®

Posted on by contentntek in Broadcast & Playout, News, Production & Post Production, Satellite & Transmissions

Broadcasters are often faced with unstable connectivity whilst covering live events. In order to ensure a stable service, Casablanca Online sought a reliable and cost-effective solution.

Based on Newtec Dialog®, SES’s OU Flex product combines live video transmission and IP connectivity via satellite to enable both data and video applications for Occasional Use (OU) services. It was installed for Casablanca Online – which has a fleet of more than 20 Outside Broadcast (OB) trucks – at the Morumbi Stadium, São Paulo, where the opening game of the Copa America between Brazil and Bolivia was held.

This enabled a two-way connection between the stadium and the studio, providing greater flexibility to facilitate remote production and distribute video content to online platforms. As a result, Casablanca Online was able to provide guaranteed and glitch-free internet connectivity over a 40/40 Mbps bidirectional link, allowing the field teams to operate optimally.

“While our OB trucks are equipped to carry out video contributions, we also require IP connectivity which often involves installing a leased line,” said Alex Pimentel, CEO at Casablanca Online. “This is expensive and quite often of a low quality. Leveraging Newtec Dialog, the SES OU Flex solution completely transformed our operations, bringing dynamic bandwidth allocation which enabled high-quality IP connectivity alongside efficient content delivery.”

The OU Flex solution was integrated into Casablanca Online’s existing Satellite News Gathering (SNG) trucks via an MDM3310 broadband modem. This required significantly less investment compared to other technologies.

“Live event coverage poses significant challenges to broadcasters when it comes to meeting viewers’ expectations,” said Steve Bisenius, VP Regional Sales Engineering at SES Video. “Instantaneous access to information, a high-quality picture and the ability to watch anywhere, on any device are becoming standard requirements – and OU Flex addresses these needs in a cost-efficient way.”

The capabilities of OU Flex are enabled by Newtec Dialog which provides a choice of three return technologies – TDMA, SCPC and Mx-DMA®, Newtec’s unique technology which combines the best qualities of TDMA and SCPC.

“With Newtec Dialog and SES OU Flex, broadcasters have a very flexible solution that enables reliable broadcasts and reduces overall costs,” said Bart Van Utterbeeck, VP South America at Newtec. “Scalability in geography and volume is also enabled by the IP-based transmission, creating endless options for content contribution and distribution across the globe.”

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SES to Deliver Premium Broadcast-Grade Cloud Service for Media Delivery on Microsoft Azure

Posted on by contentntek in Broadcast & Playout, Event, News, Satellite & Transmissions

SES announced it is developing a broadcast-grade managed cloud service offering on Microsoft Azure as a result of an expanded collaboration with Microsoft. Benefitting from Azure’s extensive cloud and AI capabilities, and its own expertise in providing managed services for leading broadcasters and media companies worldwide, SES is transforming media service delivery via the cloud.

This service will provide end-to-end, service-level agreement (SLA)-based media delivery services on Azure, giving broadcasters and media companies the flexibility and scalability that are essential in today’s rapidly changing media environment. Bringing the most relevant content to the cloud and providing innovative services covering the entire video value chain — ingest, playout, and delivery — will enable media companies to scale and address the consumer’s growing demand for a premium viewing experience on every screen.

SES leads the industry with its worldwide reach of over 355 million TV households (or 1 billion people) and distributes over 8,200 channels via satellite. With SES’s recent unification of its wholly owned video services subsidiary, MX1, with its SES Video business unit, SES now manages over 525 channels and delivers more than 8,400 hours of online video streaming, including over 620 hours of premium sports and live events, per day. Going to market with a unified solution for video infrastructure and services means that SES will accelerate the rollout of hybrid linear and nonlinear content delivery services and solutions with unprecedented global reach.

At IBC2019, SES will demonstrate two initial use cases for its new service with Azure. Visitors to the SES stand (1.B51) will be able to witness firsthand:

  • Fully managed playout services on Azure, including master playout and localised playout including ad detection and replacement
  • The advantages of efficient, high-quality multichannel live IP encoding managed 24/7 by SES on Azure

 

“Our collaboration with Microsoft Azure will enable us to take our portfolio of media services and distribution solutions to the next level,” said Ferdinand Kayser, CEO of SES Video. “Our cloud-enabled media service will be unique to the industry and will offer scalability and flexibility, along with increased broadcast quality of service, thanks to the latest AI and machine learning capabilities.”

 

Tad Brockway, corporate vice president, Azure Storage, Media, & Edge, Microsoft Corp., said, “Broadcasters and media companies need solutions to deliver high-quality video services globally with maximum flexibility, scalability, and reliability. We look forward to working with SES to deliver these new solutions on Azure.”

SES also announced today an expanded relationship with Microsoft that enables connectivity between SES’s multi-orbit satellite systems and Azure ExpressRoute. This initiative builds on the companies’ broader strategic collaboration and their shared common vision to reach everyone with intelligent cloud, media and network solutions.

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TVU Networks’ AI Tech Helps Broadcasters Deliver Customized Content

Posted on by contentntek in Broadcast & Playout, Distribution & Delivery, News

Already incorporated into several TVU products, AI is at the center of TVU’s story-centric workflow, which automates content distribution and allows broadcasters to customize – and therefore better monetize – live and archived media assets.

Customers across the world already rely on TVU’s mature AI solutions to accelerate news production and distribution. CNN Newsource, for example, provides an IP-based worldwide network of affiliates with access to breaking news, trending stories, and archival video content. When ingested through the TVU MediaMind Appliance, its live feeds are enhanced with real-time metadata generated by AI-based voice and facial recognition technologies.

As a result, CNN affiliates can find the live content they need in seconds by searching person of interest, geographic location, or other details in the metadata. With easier access to more appropriate content, broadcasters enjoy improved productivity and significant time savings.

Today’s consumers have a wide variety of platforms for consuming content and can choose to see a story on a smartphone, website, or TV. However, broadcast production is historically programmatic rather than story-centric. In the story-centric workflow, all media assets are shared, with content collected in a central location that allows any production group within a station to produce it the way they want for their viewers. This mass content customization for an audience of one is driven by Media 4.0.

TVU MediaMind
With TVU MediaMind, live feeds are enhanced with real-time metadata generated by AI-based voice and facial recognition technologies.

TVU MediaMind can automate the content distribution process for specific platforms, from traditional broadcast to social media sites, for even more efficiency. The TVU CAS (Contribution Automation Solution), which streamlines the capture and automatic metadata tagging of live video content, integrates with major MAM platforms including AP ENPS, Dalet, and Primestream.

A context-based AI solution is also used effectively in TVU Transcriber, a real-time, speech-to-text transcription service. TVU Transcriber can embed text into a video stream for closed or open captioning, as well as output a file for auditing purposes. While the caption information is important for compliance, the data provides very accurate and detailed metadata, which also improves the ability to search assets.

The TVU MediaMind user interface, which keep benefitting from regular upgrades, offers improved facial recognition accuracy and management, as well as a new Microsoft celebrity face database of more than one million celebrities. Users can also add or delete faces, plus search the database using a photo. TVU MediaMind also offers three times faster cloud interface loading speed for video preview, increased recording time up to 24 hours, and auto-prompt searching keywords.

“Machine learning and AI are more than just buzzwords, and TVU is harnessing the power of these technologies to deliver ‘smart studio’ solutions and bring about the evolution of Media 4.0,” said Paul Shen, CEO of TVU. “Our industry-leading AI is improving the efficiency at every stage of the media supply chain, from transcription services to real-time live feed searches, which benefits the story-centric workflows of everyone from small-market stations to major international networks. At IBC, we look forward to showing attendees how our established AI and machine learning technologies are helping to accelerate news production and reduce costs.”

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ATEME Debuts New and Upgraded Solutions at IBC2019 to Support Changing Media Landscape

Posted on by contentntek in Broadcast & Playout, News, OTT & Streaming media

Visitors to ATEME’s booth (Hall 1. D71) will be able to find out more about TITAN Playout, which is the ideal answer to the growing demand for tailored video content: enabling both the origination of 24/7 linear TV channels and the easy creation of popup channels for short-term events or personalized programming on D2C/OTT services.

Additionally, ATEME will demonstrate its latest video quality improvements across all codecs and major latency reductions, as well as:

  • the latest additions to its feature-rich TITAN modular family and how it helps customers to migrate to full-IP workflows thanks to high-density SMPTE 2022-5/6 and SMPTE 2110;
  • its Content Adaptive Encoding set of tools built on Machine Learning algorithms which allow service providers and pure OTT players to reduce bitrate, and so CDN costs, by up to 50% with the same video quality;
  • ATEME’s linear/file full microservices converged headend running live on the booth from hybrid cloud and covering all use cases for delivery to any screen, up to and including UHD, HEVC, Dolby AC-4 and DASH for 5G;
  • its AMS application, which offers new views like service management and a scheduler for ad insertion/blackout used by content and service providers to monetize their channels’ line-up;
  • an end-to-end AV1 processing chain based on TITAN for encoding and decoding using Broadcom’s BCM72180 AV1 set-top box prepping a new era for OTT services;
  • its ‘Future Zone’ which will display 8K streams encoded in various use cases by TITAN and how it has a key role in upcoming standards like VVC and AV2 to make this new end-user experience a success.

After months of live trials using the award-winning Kyrion and TITAN solutions, ATEME will also showcase how BISS-CA, the EBU’s open, interoperable and secured standard, allows broadcasters to secure high-value content in contribution and distribution to combat streaming privacy.

Remi Beaudouin, Chief Strategy Officer, ATEME said: “We’ll be exhibiting a number of exciting developments at this year’s IBC, including our new product, TITAN Playout. Ahead of the event, we will also be making our latest white paper “The Single Critical Factor for High-Quality Streaming, Now and Forever’’ available to download which will explain how our technology allows those in the broadcast industry to go beyond the classic cost vs quality debate to enable a simpler and more fundamental concept: value.”

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Denver Broncos Select Sony Cameras to Capture Pristine Images from New Set for Broadcast and Online

Posted on by contentntek in Broadcast & Playout, News, Production & Post Production

With a new studio for its first broadcast TV and online shows, the broadcast production department of the Denver Broncos Football Club needed additional cameras that would be worthy of the new sets designed and fabricated by Creative Dimension. In addition to broadcast, the content would be used by the digital media team for online distribution.

After extensive demos during NAB, the decision was made to select Sony HXC-FB80 studio cameras. The four Sony HXC-FB80 cameras are used inside the new studio at the Bronco broadcast facility in Englewood, CO for a variety of productions, including: Broncos Connected and Orange & Blue Daily. The new shows debuted last summer and air on the MyNetworkTV-affiliate station, KTVD-Channel 20, owned by Tegna.

“Without a doubt, the two most important factors for us in terms of camera selection for our new studio were image quality and price point,” said Austin Brink, Manager of Broadcast Productions, Denver Broncos Football Club. “The FB80’s capture full HD picture quality. Even in low light, we capture a ton of detail with little to no noise. We’re confident what our broadcast and online viewers see is the very best HD picture possible.”

HXC-FB80 cameras are equipped with three 2/3-inch Exmor CMOS sensors. The camera head can output 3G-SDI signals in a range of formats, including 1080. It can also support 1080/23.92PsF, 25PsF and 29.97PsF. This range of output formats provides the Bronco production team with greater flexibility now and for the future.

New Denver Bronco Studio equipped with four Sony HXC-FB80 cameras
New Denver Bronco Studio equipped with four Sony HXC-FB80 cameras

With LED lighting and a large video wall in the studio, the ability to digitally shade and color the Sony HXC-FB80 was also critical. Dual optical filter wheels for neutral density and color correction can be controlled from a remote-control panel, master setup unit or directly from the camera head. Gamma functions let users fine-tune tonal values and control contrast and detail. The optical low pass filter reduces any moiré patterning that appears in front of the Bronco’s 3’x3’ video wall.

“These cameras have been very dependable and are extremely quick to turn on and easy to operate,” explained Brink. “We’ve had zero issues from a performance standpoint. Our camera operators have been very happy with their ease of use, and our viewers notice the sharp images and beautiful skin tones. This camera selection has made a world of difference in the visual presentation of our shows.”

The RTS chooses StudioTalk to video broadcast its radio programmes

Posted on by contentntek in Broadcast & Playout, News, OTT & Streaming media, Radio & Audio

The Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS) is a public service audiovisual company, owned by the media group SSR (Swiss Broadcasting and Television Corporation), which offers programmes on four radio channels, two TV channels and numerous digital platforms.

Studio_FORUM
Studio for the “Forum” show at RTS

“The RTS project uses all the strengths of StudioTalk, whether in production, channel branding, monitoring or distribution. Working hand in hand, we were able to make our solution evolve to meet their needs,” comments Olivier Waty, Workflows and Media Solutions Director at BCE.

StudioTalk, a solution developed by Broadcasting Centre Europe (BCE), is a complete solution for live and non-live video production with the management of the editorial content of the shows, the channel branding and the sets as well as the broadcasting of the programmes on any platform.

Stéphan_Mahrer“We needed to take a new step with “Forum”, and we were looking for a solution that could offer us all the tools we needed to make television from the same interface. StudioTalk was the answer.” Explains Stéphan Mahrer, Responsable mise en image des productions radio at RTS.

In order to enrich the user experience on the Internet and on social networks, it was important for RTS to shoot its most important radio programmes, namely “La matinale” and “Forum”. Using StudioTalk, RTS creates real talkshows, broadcast these on their website, on social networks and especially on television.

“For StudioTalk users, it’s very easy to find all the tools they need to do their production, whether it’s Picture in Picture, enrichment or the management of the screens on the set. The user also has the option to switch to the automatic production mode to perform another task during a broadcast and then regain control in due course,” adds Stéphan Mahrer.

More than an advanced production solution, StudioTalk also allows the RTS to monitor its equipment via a real-time monitoring interface of all the elements of their workflow.

Philippe_Staehlin“In StudioTalk, we have access to a technical supervision that usually appears on more expensive systems. This allows us to have an overview of the services and monitor the operations. This will allow a person to perform complex support tasks even for a Level 1 intervention support, restarting one or another system to ensure its availability during live production.” Explains Philippe Staehlin, Chef Secteur Systèmes Broadcast at RTS.

BCE has also supported the RTS teams in the integration of their new studio. The solution has been customized to meet the customer’s expectations. Working hand in hand, RTS and BCE made the solution evolve and to allow any employee, with a technical background or not, to use the solution easily.

StudioTalk_RTS
StudioTalk at RTS

“In this project, what was really important for us was the relationship with BCE, we found a real partner with whom we made our show and our tool evolve at the same time.” Concludes Stéphan Mahrer.

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