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Charting the TV industry's path beyond Covid - CSI Magazine
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                                                                                                              Spring 2021

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                                  Charting the TV industry’s path beyond Covid
                      June 2016
                           • OTT, VoD, Cloud TV, Cable, Satellite, IPTV, DTT, IoT • The latest news, views and features
Charting the TV industry's path beyond Covid - CSI Magazine
Charting the TV industry's path beyond Covid - CSI Magazine
Contents                                                                                                    TV Broadcast • Streaming • Satellite • Cable • Hybrid
                                                                                                                   The leading media for video delivery technology

                                                   21 Direct-to-consumer video
                                                   Sports represents the biggest new
                                                   opportunity. CSI and MediaKind examine
                                                   the trends
                                                                                                     Editor
                                                   27 Cable Labs Q&A                                 Goran Nastic
                                                   Dr Curtis Knittle updates us on the group’s
                                                   work into DOCSIS 4, DAA, the 10G                  Commercial
                                                                                                     Camilla Capece
06 COVER STORY: Covid and media                    platform and other hot topics
Examining the state of the media &                                                                   Design and production
entertainment industry one year on from the        31 Compression supplement with                    Matt Mills (Manager)
start of the pandemic                              V-Nova                                            Jessica Harrington
                                                   Deploying better compression opens new
10 Q&A with Verizon Media                          business cases and brings cost savings to a       Regular contributors
                                                   range of applications. What are the new           Adrian Pennington, Philip Hunter,
Looking at innovation during and post-
                                                                                                     David Adams, Stephen Cousins,
pandemic                                           codec options?
                                                                                                     Anna Tobin

12 Analyst corner: AVOD                            43 Stats corner                                   Circulation
The evolution and consumer uptake of AVOD          End-2020 European and US payTV figures            Alina Susca
and other streaming services                       from the informitv Multiscreen Index
                                                                                                     Accounts
                                                   44 Technology corner: Smart cities                Marilou Tait, Mohamad Saidani
14 Piracy in lockdown
We talk to Irdeto about how pirates also           SCTE CTO Chris Bastian says the
                                                                                                     Editorial
adapted and changed their business models in       pandemic has given rise to new smart              tel +44(0)20 7562 2401
the last 12 months                                 community initiatives                             goran.nastic@csimagazine.com

16 Remote production                               48 Buyer’s Guide                                  Advertising
Covid has accelerated and permanently              A listing of key suppliers in the cable, telco,   tel +44(0)20 7562 2438
                                                   broadband and satellite sectors                   camilla.capece@csimagazine.com
disrupted traditional sports production
                                                                                                     Subscriptions
                                                                                                     tel +44 (0) 20 1635 588 861

Editor’s report: Spring 2021                                                                         perspectivesubs@dynamail.co.uk
                                                                                                     Circulation manager: alina.susca@
                                                                                                     perspectivepublishing.com
            Hands up who saw the AT&T-Discovery deal coming… if you did you are in a
            very small minority as the announcement took the market and analysts by                  Subscription rates
            complete surprise. The new company will have annual revenues of about $52                Per year: Europe £88; UK £68;
            billion and combine an extensive portfolio of brands — HBO, Warner Bros.,                Rest of World £98. Cheques payable to
                                                                                                     Perspective Publishing
            Discovery, DC Comics, CNN, Eurosport, Animal Planet to name but a few —
                                                                                                     Limited and addressed to the
alongside studios and streaming businesses that are in various stages of embryonic growth.           Circulation Department
It could be messy and there may be some fat that needs to be trimmed but it marks a new
breed of media mega-M&As that will define this decade. Meanwhile, most of this issue of              Printed by Buxton Press
CSI is focused on assessing the effect that Covid has had on different parts of media and
entertainment. GN                                                                                    Managing Director
                                                                                                     John Woods

                                                                 Perspective Publishing              Publishing Director
                                                                 3 London Wall Buildings
                                                                 London                              Mark Evans
                                                                 EC2M 5PD
                                                                 www.perspectivepublishing.com       ISSN 1467-5935

                                                                                www.csimagazine.com                     spring 2021                 03
Charting the TV industry's path beyond Covid - CSI Magazine
News

news in brief                  Streaming grows on the main screen as
SVOD subs to hit 1.5bn
There are forecast to be
                               multiple devices jostle for share
just under 1.5 billion         Conviva’s latest report into                                     watch when it’s convenient
subscribers to video on        the state of global streaming                                    for them rather than
demand services globally       suggests that big screens                                        following regularly scheduled
by 2026, a growth of 591       dominating viewing might                                         programming live.”
million from this year. The    become the new normal                                              By platform, while Roku
average SVOD subscriber        for streaming.                                                   captured a significant 30%
will pay for 2.14 SVOD           Streaming on big screens                                       share of global big screen
subscriptions, according to    accounted for 73% of global                                      viewing time, this dominance
new data from Digital TV       viewing time and the State of                                    was primarily driven by
Research. The total is         Streaming report for Q1                                          North America where it
expected to cross the 1        2021 identifies big screen                                       commanded 37% share in Q1
billion mark in 2021.          viewing as the key trend.                                        2021. In Europe, the second
Numbers were boosted last      While people are streaming                                       largest market for Roku,
year by the pandemic,          more, they are at home on                                        Roku only accounted for 8%
which saw a peak of 201        larger screens as smart TVs      captured just 11% share         share of the big screen,
million subscriptions          saw the biggest expansion of     of viewing time in Asia         trailing a number of other
added. The number of           viewership with a 115%           while desktop and mobile        devices including Samsung
payTV homes is expected        increase over Q1 of last year.   phones dominated with           with 19%, Chromecast with
to remain flat during this     In contrast, mobile phones,      a combined 84% of               12%, Amazon Fire TV with
five year period by            tablets, and desktops saw        viewing time.                   10%, LG TV with 10%, and
comparison.                    growth in line with the            “Big screens are here         Android TV with 9%. Roku
                               global average.                  to stay,” said Conviva. “2021   does not fare any better in
AWS for M&E                      In nearly every region, big    came with some optimism for     other regions, with 4% share
Amazon Web Services has        screens dominated streaming      a return to normalcy but        or less in Africa, Asia,
introduced the AWS for         as connected TV devices,         there might be a new normal     Oceania, and South America.
Media & Entertainment          smart TVs, and gaming            for streaming. A new normal       Some interesting leaders
initiative featuring new       consoles captured the lion’s     that sees big screens           emerged as the top big screen
and existing services and      share of viewing time. Big       dominate viewing as people      device in different regions,
solutions from the compa-      screens were most dominant       watch less on smaller, mobile   including the CanalPlus set
ny and its partners, built     in North America capturing       devices. A new normal where     top box with 54% share of
specifically for content       a massive 81% share,             social investment is            viewing time in Africa,
creators, rights holders,      however in most regions big      paramount and the powerful      Android TV’s 49% share in
producers, broadcasters,       screens accounted for at         confluence of social,           Asia, Chromecast in Oceania
and distributors. It aligns    least 50% of all viewing time.   streaming, and advertising      with 24%, or Samsung TV in
nine AWS Services, 11          At the opposite end of the       can no longer be ignored. A     South America at 30% share
AWS Solutions, dedicated       spectrum, big screens            new normal where viewers        in Q1 2021.
AWS appliances, and more
than 400 AWS Partners
against five dedicated         UK TV football rights rollover
solution areas. The Walt       The Premier League will          due to be auctioned in the      comes despite rival
Disney Company uses            continue its existing UK         coming months, but will         broadcasters unhappiness.
AWS to support the global      television deal with Sky         now automatically extend        Due to the damaging impact
expansion of Disney+.          Sports, BT Sport, Amazon         at the current value without    the Covid-19 pandemic, the
AWS is the preferred           Prime Video and BBC Sport,       an auction. The three           Premier League said it was
public cloud infrastructure    rolling over the rights for      broadcasters paid £5 billion    able to demonstrate to the
provider, helping improve      another 3 years due to the       to televise 200 games           government exceptional and
performance and reliability    impact of the pandemic.          a season between 2019           compelling reasons for the
for Disney+ as the               The domestic rights, which     and 2022.                       Exclusion Order, a move that
streaming service              fell in value by around 10%        The decision, approved        received tentative approval
continues to scale globally.   in the previous auction, were    unanimously by the EPL,         from the government.

04   spring 2021          www.csimagazine.com
Charting the TV industry's path beyond Covid - CSI Magazine
News

RDK passes 80m deployed devices                                                                    news in brief

RDK Management has                with RDK now deployed            software stack has also         Verizon sells media
revealed the latest numbers       across more than 30 leading      evolved beyond cable set top    unit
detailing the continued           service providers throughout     boxes into telco but also       US telco Verizon
adoption of RDK open              North America, Europe,           IoT/smart home services.        Communications has sold
source software, which is         Latin America, and Asia.         For example, RDK software       its Verizon Media business
used to power customer-             While the rival Android        is available for IP-connected   to private equity invest-
premises equipment (CPE)          TV platform is deployed in       cameras. On the broadband       ment management firm
from broadband and video          over 150 operators globally,     side, RDK software now          Apollo Funds for $5
service providers worldwide.      they are smaller in scale,       spans across DOCSIS, DSL,       billion. Verizon Media is
  As part of its annual update,   either found in Tier 2 or 3      and GPON gateways, which        the global tech and media
the organisation said there       operators or restricted          is particularly beneficial to   arm of Verizon, which
are now more than 80 million      to small portions of             service providers operating     includes ad tech and
device deployments across a       customers in the bigger          a mix of transport networks     media platform businesses,
variety of devices. The           service providers.               within their footprints.        as well as the Yahoo and
number of RDK devices               By comparison, most RDK        Indeed, during a recent         AOL brands, which
deployed globally rose from       deployments are by Tier 1        webinar, Deutsche Telekom       Verizon bought in 2015
60 million in spring 2020,        service providers, and the       revealed that it is ready to    and 2017 for around $4.5
                                                                   soon start deploying RDK        billion each. Under the
                                                                   gateways.                       deal, Verizon will retain a
                                                                     RDK4, introduced late last    10% stake in Verizon
                                                                   year, is available as part of   Media, which will rebrand
                                                                   the RDK Video Accelerator       as Yahoo at the close of
                                                                   program, which provides         the transaction. At close,
                                                                   development and                 the business will be led by
                                                                   deployment-ready set-top        Verizon Media CEO Guru
                                                                   boxes from leading OEMs,        Gowrappan. The transac-
                                                                   including CommScope,            tion, which is expected to
                                                                   Humax, KAON, and                close in the second half of
                                                                   Skyworth. These set-top         2021, also includes the
                                                                   boxes come pre-integrated       sale of Techcrunch,
                                                                   with the Metrological App       Engadget and Ryot. The
                                                                   Store, helping operators        move effectively marks
                                                                   on-board apps like Android      Verizon Communications’
                                                                   TV does.                        exit from digital media
                                                                                                   and advertising.

TiVo buys bankrupt MobiTV                                                                          Final chance for CSI
                                                                                                   Awards
Xperi-owned TiVo outbid           Cable One, and small cable       which is highly complemen-      This is your last chance to
rival offers from Roku and        operators represented            tary to Xperi’s existing        enter this year’s awards. By
Amino in an auction to buy        by the National Cable            media patent portfolio.         popular demand we have
bankrupt company MobiTV,          TV Cooperative.                    “The acquisition of the       extended this year’s
currently in chapter 11.            Xperi sees the MobiTV s        MobiTV assets immediately       deadline to 1 June 2021.
  MobiTV, which entered           olution provides an attractive   expands our capabilities and    There are 3 brand new
bankruptcy in March, delivers     extension of TiVo’s IPTV         the addressable market for      categories for this year
white-label IPTV solutions        payTV service offerings by       our IPTV solutions, helping     (sustainability, broadband
and app-based video               adding managed services          to secure TiVo’s position       experience and remote
distribution technology cable     with the ability to reduce       as a leading provider of        production), alongside
companies, to cable and other     deployment time and              Pay-TV solutions,” said         old favourites. For more
payTV companies and was an        onboarding costs. It said        Jon Kirchner, chief             and to enter now go to
early pioneer in the space. Its   the acquisition includes         executive officer of Xperi,     https://www.csimagazine.
clients include T-Mobile and      MobiTV’s patent portfolio,       in the statement.               com/awards

                                                                            www.csimagazine.com              spring 2021     05
Charting the TV industry's path beyond Covid - CSI Magazine
Cover story: Covid one year on

Beyond Covid: Where now for
media and entertainment?
Goran Nastic takes a look at how Covid has changed parts of

A
media and entertainment and what we can expect going forward
                   s the world             specifically the shift from broadcast to       As Maria Rua Aguete, Senior
                   continues to get to     streaming and the adoption of cloud         Research Director of Media and
                   grips with the          infrastructure for video applications and   Entertainment at Omdia, observes:
                   ongoing pandemic,       workflows.                                  “2020 has been a record-breaking
                   the media industry         Streaming services enjoyed               year for SVOD, caused by unexpected
                   can consider itself     unprecedented growth in 2020, as            uplift from Covid-19, but having
                   lucky that it has       people entertained themselves during        exhausted the pool of new households
managed to not just survive, but in        stay-at-home orders. It was popular to      to sell to, SVOD services must brace
some cases thrive during this time.        suggest that Disney could not have          themselves for a much slower 2021”.
Taking stock a little over one year        timed the launch of its new Disney+            From 246 million SVOD net
on from the first wave of                  service any better, reaching over 100       additions in 2020, Omdia expects 139m
widespread global lockdowns, the           million customers in little over a year.    SVOD net additions in 2021.
picture is distinctly mixed when it           Traffic on the major video streaming        Nonetheless, while there is some
comes to media and entertainment.          sites continues to outperform pre-          uncertainty from Covid-19 in the short
  While home entertainment boomed,         pandemic levels, up 21% according to        term, in the long-term, the rise of
for example, it was a difficult time for   Verizon’s Look Forward study from           streaming to replace linear TV around
cinemas, exhibitions, theme parks and      March 2021.                                 the world is the clear trend in
other in-person events. Below we look         However, as Netflix’s first quarter      entertainment.
at several sectors of the industry to      results showed, last year’s growth is          Aguete thinks that Netflix will still
assess Covid’s impact, both in the short   unsustainable, with the company             have more subscribers than Disney+ in
and long term.                             attributing weaker additions to the         2025 despite the latter’s impressive
                                           pandemic ‘pull forward’ effect seen in      start, but it will be very close: both are
Streaming exploded, but growth             2020. Even the meteoric rise of Disney+     forecast to have over 250 million subs
has cooled off                             was unsustainable and Disney’s own          by that point. In total by 2025, there
The pandemic accelerated two key           recent quarterly results showed a           will be 1.6bn subscribers to SVOD
trends that were already in motion,        slowing down in customer growth.            services globally, according to Omdia
                                                                                       estimates.

                                                                                       Cloud migration
                                                                                       The pandemic has seen the shift to
                                                                                       cloud accelerate dramatically, and the
                                                                                       broadcasters are on the whole
                                                                                       benefiting from the efficiencies,
                                                                                       flexibility, and scalability that brings.
                                                                                       The last year has seen widespread
                                                                                       adoption of remote and cloud
                                                                                       workflows, even among the largest
                                                                                       entities such as Globo and Univision,
                                                                                       who both recently announced multi-year
                                                                                       digitisation and migration projects with
                                                                                       Google Cloud.
                                                                                          “This year and into next we are seeing
                                                                                       major efforts to accelerate migration of

06   spring 2021          www.csimagazine.com
Charting the TV industry's path beyond Covid - CSI Magazine
Cover story: Covid one year on

the most complex production                 The return of live sports                    revenues, Dataxis thinks that the return
environments from on-premise to the         For a good chunk of the year, sports         to pre-pandemic levels will depend on
cloud,” says Neil Anderson of Codemill.     broadcasters had been stripped of live       whether sports fans have renewed their
“Things will never be the same again,       programming because of the                   whole appetite for sports content.
we’re seeing studios and broadcasters       cancellation of almost all live sports
moving as much as possible to the           events from March 2020. This forced          Remote production is on the rise
cloud, held back, only by online video      many to turn to their library archives,      Much like the news side of the
editing, colour grading and audio           giving people something to watch in          television business, many of the
finishing, which are still desktop based    that absence.                                technology changes that sports
and hardware dependent.”                       However, new figures from Dataxis         broadcasters rapidly adopted in
   According to Shahar Bar of               shows that the churn and the loss in         response to Covid were already
Harmonic, “The cloud performed              subscribers did not hit as hard as one       underway before the pandemic hit.
exceptionally well during the pandemic      might have expected, as it only                When covering live events, broadcast-
— proving it is able to handle the scale    intensified an already existing trend due    ers are increasingly turning to remote
and the load required for complex and       to other factors (such as cord- cutting or   production. According to a recent
heavy video workflows. As a result, for     piracy). In Western Europe at the end-       Haivision survey, 39% of those surveyed
many media companies, the cloud is no       2020, the number of subscribers to           are employing remote production or
longer a niche, but rather an inherent      premium sports channels has almost           REMI workflows. Almost half of those
infrastructure tool. Looking back at the    returned to its pre-covid levels,            surveyed (46%) also indicated that
past 12 months, it is clear the shifts to   according to the analyst firm. Of            REMI/At-Home technology is one of
streaming and cloud are in full motion      course, revenues experienced a               the most important trends for their
and essentially unstoppable.”               significant decrease, because of             organisation in the future.
   But Jonathan Morgan of Object            subscriptions being cancelled, frozen or       It is expected that the cloud will play
Matrix offers a word of caution: “Many      downgraded to less premium packages          a very big role in live sports production
are pushing a narrative that widespread     with lower ARPUs.                            into the future and that the big changes
cloud-based infrastructure is inevitable       The hardest hit in terms of churn         to remote production caused by Covid
in a post-Covid future. But that doesn’t    were OTTs like Eleven Sports and             here to stay after pandemic is over.
take into account the variety of            DAZN, whose offer relies mainly on
offerings within the cloud environment,     live sports, as well as flexible monthly     Gaming also soars
all with pros and cons and different        subscriptions that are easily cancellable.   Game streaming services have soared
cost profiles. Under normal                 Others, such as Sky, either allowed their    since the pandemic’s start. Microsoft
circumstances, organisations making         customers to freeze their subscriptions      now has more than 15 million Game
significant infrastructure changes would    for free or compensated them with            Pass subscribers, Nintendo more than
have time to plan a roadmap and             additional free content.                     26 million paid online subs, and Sony’s
implement a phased approach. In the            Almost all competitions have              PlayStation Plus now has more than 45
wake of Covid, some media                   returned from September, even if a large     million.
organisations are making hasty              majority have been behind closed doors.        eSports, too, increased 2020 revenues
decisions which could see them locked       This has at least given broadcasters an      by about 15% over 2019 and is expected
into unsuitable cloud contracts for years   opportunity to innovate, through areas       to keep growing as in-person
to come.”                                   such as co-watching. But in terms of         competitions return.

                                                                            www.csimagazine.com                spring 2021     07
Charting the TV industry's path beyond Covid - CSI Magazine
Cover story: Covid one year on

New network patterns                        minutes per day watching TV, which is         time high, it seems natural that TV will
With the rise in streaming, gaming          up 6 minutes on 2019. Even young              remain an important platform for
and home working came a big rise            adults’ viewing time increased by 2           advertisers,” adds Craig Buckland of
in network usage. Looking at what           minutes, with an average of 1 hour 49         Broadcast Traffic Systems.
happened immediately when the               minutes a day.                                  These AVOD and FAST services
pandemic first struck, internet usage         “Viewers have been keen to watch            are increasingly also being added
soared and many ISPs saw double-digit       TV live in 2020, notably following            to the overall streaming bundle as
growth in broadband usage in March.         news and country leaders addresses.           an important hybrid business
  Akamai saw global traffic on its          In most countries, the levels of daily        model component.
platform grow 30% in March 2020 as          viewing time have remained high even
Internet usage soared around the world      after restrictions linked to the              New piracy trends in lockdown
amid the coronavirus crisis, compared       pandemic were eased, especially               Piracy has always been a problem for
to 3% growth in a typical month.            among young adults,” said Frédéric            the industry, and the pandemic has only
  In the UK, as the country approached      Vaulpré of Mediametre.                        worsened it. Covid has kept audiences
the one year anniversary of the first         But it may be the renaissance was           from gathering in-person, forcing
lockdown in March 2021, Virgin Media        short lived, with the latest data             festivals and live events to deliver
revealed that the country’s appetite for    suggesting that live and same-day             content through online channels. As a
data shows no signs of slowing down.        viewing is once again on a                    result of this digital shift, a major surge
Analysis of more than five million          downward slope.                               in online piracy has been observed
Virgin Media broadband customers                                                          since the outbreak of the pandemic,
across January and February revealed a      AVOD                                          with an increase in traffic to illicit sites.
marked shift in behaviour, with weekday     In a recession, marketing budgets               A case in point is the release of
afternoons becoming the busiest time of     are typically the first expense cut           Wonder Woman 1984 and its almost-
day for upstream traffic for the first      from a company’s budget. As a result,         immediate appearance on torrent sites.
time ever. The peak period for people       free ad-supported services found              Two months since its release in
sending data is now between 2pm and         themselves in a curious juxtaposition         December 2020, it was still among
4pm, and represents a shift away from       where revenues did not mirror the             the top downloaded and pirates
the long-established pattern of evenings    increase in viewership.                       movies, according to the data on
being the busiest time on the network.        Indeed, ad-based OTT services saw           torrentfreak.com
  “Fuelled by a pandemic that forced        a huge increase in traffic, much more           The European Intellectual Property
millions to work and school from home,      people watching the service, but a            Office (EUIPO) conducted a study into
2020 was one for the history books in       huge decrease in revenue because              the impact of piracy across member
upstream data consumption,” said            advertisers were not purchasing ads           states, estimating that 13.7 million
OpenVault in its latest Broadband           any more; they spent less money as            people across EU countries are
Insights study, which found that total      people watched more.                          accessing illegal pirate services of
upstream consumption surged 63%               “A major opportunity that emerged           differing flavours.
in 2020, roughly 350% higher than           from this explosion in ABR streaming            Interestingly, among the new
historic growth rates. “Pandemic            during Covid-19 is targeted advertising.      piracy trends observed is that pirate
lockdowns changed the nature of             There’s a high degree of interest in          services also changed their business
upstream usage – in all likelihood,         targeted ads from OTT service                 models to adapt to new circumstances,
forever,” OpenVault added.                  providers and pay-TV operators that           tailoring their offers to attract viewers.
                                            want to broaden viewership and boost          Much more on these can be seen in
Linear TV made (a short) comeback           revenues. Whether this is to launch new       our piracy in lockdown feature on
There was something of a mini-              services, attract new consumers, or           page 14.
resurgence in live TV viewing, especially   subsidise premium content rights,
news, and the EBU was quick to              targeted advertising is the next big          Chipset shortages and supply
point out how important the output          growth area for streaming,” says              side issues
of its broadcaster members was              Broadpeak’s Xavier Leclercq.                  Last year, Technicolor guided CSI
during this time.                             “I strongly believe that linear             through the various challenges and
   Data from audience measurement           transmission will remain important for        complexities of navigating the supply
firm Mediametre’s shows that TV             the foreseeable future, but it is certainly   side during the pandemic. An important
viewers in 91 countries around the          being augmented by FAST and AVOD.             lesson learned is making sure the flow
globe spent an average of 2 hours 54        With consumer consumption at an all-          of components, especially

08   spring 2021          www.csimagazine.com
Charting the TV industry's path beyond Covid - CSI Magazine
Cover story: Covid one year on

semiconductors, is uninterrupted. And        their doors, there is now a big debate as    the ‘pre-Covid’ period.”
that semiconductor supply chain              to cinema’s existential crisis post covid.     Similarly, work and other live events
remains a huge issue.                        Some chains have not survived the            will all likely continue to be hybrid post-
  The global chip shortage has hit           crisis, and the question now is will         pandemic, with Covid permanently
everything from automotive industry to       cinema goers ever flock back in the          changing how we live our lives and
Apple MacBook and iPad production,           same numbers, especially as release          entertain ourselves.
so much so that a group of large             windows continue to shrink?
technology companies formed the                 While many can operate profitably         Innovation ahoy
Semiconductors in America Coalition          at 50% capacity, the cinema crisis           All in all, last year brought about
(SIAC), while the new Biden                  is exacerbated by a complex                  considerable changes to the broadcast
administration ordered a review of the       environment where studios are                landscape, forcing broadcasters to be
global semiconductor supply chain.           experimenting with new distribution          more creative and innovative than ever.
  Set-top maker Amino says it is seeing      models, not least Warner Brothers’             A recent Haivision survey found that
wait times for semiconductor orders          decision to release its entire 2021          Covid has usurpingly accelerated IP
expand by as much as six months.             movie slate simultaneously in movie          adoption and how broadcasters are
Harmonic warned that part of its             theatres and on its streaming service        operating. While the transition towards
supply chain problems extend                 HBO Max.                                     IP was already in progress, 71% of
through 2021 and possibly into                  More locally, Insys Video                 those polled stated that Covid has
the start of 2022.                           Technologies worked with                     accelerated the adoption process
                                             MOJEeKINO.pl, a VOD platform                 within their organisation.
Production delays also to continue           connecting more than 40 arthouse               According to Bitmovin’s Annual
The production of new content has            cinemas to bring the cinema to viewers’      Developer Report, 43% of respondents
proved a challenge. Many series              homes across Poland. The company             believe viewer engagement presents the
rapidly ended production in March            also worked with music and arts              most opportunity for innovation within
2020, curtailing their current seasons.      festivals, helping them deliver some of      the industry.
And whilst production has resumed            the content they would normally be able        “This is indicative of changing
under strict health guidelines, there        to present live.                             consumer habits brought on by the
remains a significant lag in new content        The growth in TVOD (transactional         pandemic. Additionally, we will
which has resulted in many                   video on demand) is interesting and          continue to see streaming platforms
broadcasters raiding the back catalogue      while it cannot replace the whole            adopt new technology such as
to air repeats, and bringing these to a      cinema experience but can still be a         HDR and next-generation surround
new audience demographic.                    shared experience, according to John         sound to enhance the at-home
   Production activity began to              Griffiths of Spicy Mango. “It’s a            viewing experience,” says Bitmovin’s
accelerate during the fourth quarter of      different experience to the cinema but       Stefan Lederer.
2020, following a virtual standstill.        the studios could consider launching in        In the final analysis, it is just as
Furtherm ore, a number of countries          this window for TVOD, alongside the          well that the media and entertainment
like Canada, France and the UK have          cinemas and then licencing to SVOD,”         industry has been used to its fair
launched and/or extended pandemic-           he suggests, adding that the idea of         share of disruption over the previous
related support programs including           guests having to be in a studio              decade. While question marks remain
wage subsidies and production                everytime is a thing of the past.            as to some long-term impacts of the
insurance/indemnity schemes that                This hybrid approach is expected to       pandemic on specific sectors such as
provide pandemic-related coverage.           continue going forwards, helping to          cinemas, most insiders are confident of
   There continue to be production           engage a more global audience                a healthy rebound going forward.
stoppages/delays as the latest waves of      alongside physical events.                     “Despite enormous setbacks, our
the pandemic temporarily restrict               “We’ve been hearing a lot of              industry proved once again to be as
production activity or limit international   discussion about when in-person trade        adaptable and innovative as it was
travel for talent and crew. Nevertheless,    show attendance will resume as well as       resilient,” said Charles Rivkin, chairman
the industry is optimistic about a steady    the role hybrid events will play in the      and CEO of the Moton Picture
return to normalcy during the second         future. Right now, the context of the        Association in the group’s annual
half of 2021.                                situation is unclear,” says Atika Boulgaz    THEME report. “Innovation will help
                                             at Viaccess-Orca. “Events organisers         us meet those audiences where they are
What now for cinemas?                        need to prepare the in-person events         and help restore the vibrant creativity
With many cinemas finally opening            bearing in mind it will not be similar to    that fuels our industry.”

                                                                              www.csimagazine.com                spring 2021      09
Charting the TV industry's path beyond Covid - CSI Magazine
Covid special

Q &A
Ariff Sidi of Verizon Media shares his thoughts and insights with CSI into
the impact of Covid on media and entertainment
                                                     Would you identify any key trends           things or learnings we can take
                                                    that Covid has significantly                 from these as we slowly move
Ariff Sidi, General Manager

                                                    accelerated, bringing about long-            forward post-pandemic?
and Chief Product Officer,

                                                    terms structural changes?                    Verizon’s PayItForward LIVE initiative,
Verizon Media Platform

                                                    New types of immersive experiences are       powered by the Verizon Media
                                                    making their way into the OTT                Platform, offered live-streamed
                                                    streaming world and are evolving sports      entertainment from some of the biggest
                                                    fans’ viewing experience. Real-time          names in the industry, to financially
                                                    streaming technology, like that offered      support small businesses in need. Large
                                                    by Verizon Media, sets the stage for a       global organizations, such as Verizon
                                                    new reality of how sports content can        and Verizon Media, have the
                                                    be consumed and provides viewers with        capabilities to be part of positive
                                                    new ‘watch together’ social experiences,     community solutions. It’s important to
                                                    such as co-viewing synchronized live         us and our team members to contribute
                                                    streams and in-game trivia. Sports fans      to local communities and provide
                                                    can now host virtual watch parties with      support not just when it’s desperately

T
                                                    family and friends. These capabilities       needed, but as much as possible.
                                                    are highly valued now and will continue
                he media                            to be in the future as they make live        Zooming in on networks and
                entertainment                       viewing a more interactive experience.       streaming, the pandemic has
                industry has seen                      The acceleration of cord-cutting in       brought about new peaks and
                its fair share of                   favor of OTT has led to both                 traffic patterns. Looking at your
                disruption in past                  broadcasters’ increased need for             own data (and perhaps on a wider
                years, but those in                 operational stability and a focus on         level), how do these look in 2021
                the last year have                  revenue, which is now a significant, if      compared to last year but also
been the biggest so far. From a                     not critical, part of the business’s         pre-pandemic?
very high level, how would you                      bottom line.                                 The pandemic brought a boom in
assess Covid’s effects on our                          Additionally, the rapid acceleration of   streaming due to most people being
industry so far?                                    OTT in an increasingly crowded market        at home. In March 2020 there was a
   The pandemic created a turning point             is forcing providers to think about how      huge spike in internet traffic, with
for video streaming. Behavioral and                 they price their products in ways that       broadband providers experiencing a
lifestyle changes led to digital media              create flexibility through a variety of      traffic surge between 30% - 50% across
consumption hitting record levels,                  price points that appeal to the broadest     their mobile and fixed networks. In
forcing streaming providers to further              audience. Peacock, as a recent example,      Europe, the spikes were as high as 70%.
innovate and evolve the viewer                      has three tiers from totally ad-supported    We’re still seeing high levels of traffic
experience. The increase in content                 to fully-paid without ads. This              across our network and while we
streaming, game downloads, and                      consumer-first approach will be around       expect these to level off, the overall
at-home activities accelerated trends               for the long-term.                           trend for internet traffic is heading in
around OTT already underway. The                                                                 an upwards direction.
industry was already heading towards                Service providers in the US and
more widespread adoption of cloud-                  Europe have undertaken various               Do you think these new patterns
based technologies, particularly in live            community initiatives during this            will stay with us post-pandemic?
sports, but the pandemic served as a                period to assist families and other          Despite the initial spike in
catalyst for these trends.                          people. In your opinion, are there           consumption, we anticipate traffic

10             spring 2021              www.csimagazine.com
Covid special

                                                                                         phishing attacks used to steal account
                                                                                         credentials and financial information to
                                                                                         using platform names and their original
                                                                                         programming as bait to trick users into
                                                                                         downloading a variety of threats,
                                                                                         including malware and adware.
                                                                                            As a result, there’s been an increase
                                                                                         in OTT platforms evaluating their
                                                                                         approaches and moving to cloud-based
                                                                                         solutions for security. Verizon Media
patterns to flatten as we begin to return    philosophy is to partner with our           Platform’s Security Services protects
to normal life. We still expect to see       customers and provide them with             streaming services from the latest
YoY growth as global streaming services      the flexibility and ability to tailor       infrastructure and application-layer
continue to increase in popularity. The      the products they deliver. Doing so         attacks. Built on Verizon’s global
huge increase in traffic, caused by the      empowers service providers to               network with high-capacity PoPs around
pandemic, caught a lot of providers off      deliver the best possible experience        the world, our WAF DDoS and bot
guard, which is why it’s vital for           to consumers, given the current             management solutions provide scalable
streaming services to be prepared to         constraints.                                protection at the edge of the Internet,
handle unexpected peaks.                        The sheer amount of video traffic and    stopping advance threats before they’re
                                             consumer demand for high-quality            able to reach critical web infrastructure
The EU notoriously brought in                streams mean that media companies           and impact users’ experience.
measures during the first                    can no longer rely on a single content
lockdown to limit network                    delivery network (CDN) to deliver           Live sports have suffered but
congestion by downgrading video              content to a global audience. Verizon       events have come back, in many
quality. What are the main ways in           Media has pioneered a multi-CDN             cases without crowds. How do you
which Verizon Media works with               approach. By spreading traffic over         see sports streaming adapting to
service providers in terms of the            multiple CDNs, broadcasters are             new realities and do you think the
technology options to guarantee a            protected against slowdowns and             overall market (payTV and OTT)
top QoS/QoE? Is there any one-               downtime; if one provider’s network         will be significantly different as we
size-fits all advice you can give?           experiences an outage, traffic can be       move out of the pandemic?
At Verizon Media, our CDN is                 routed through another network. As          The increase in demand for interactive
optimized for video delivery while           more content owners start to adopt a        features will continue to accelerate,
maintaining best-in-class QoE regardless     multi-CDN approach, consumers               especially from live sports broadcasters
of demands. We are working with our          around the world will be able to enjoy      who want to continue to evolve the
customers to move key video workflow         the best quality streams with sub-second    match-day experience for viewers at
capabilities such as video ingestion,        latency on multiple devices.                home. Even though fans are beginning
video encoding, and ad-insertion closer                                                  to return to stadiums, as we’re seeing in
to where users physically are by utilizing   Cybersecurity has been on the rise          the English Premier League,
a CDN Edge Compute platform.                 in the last 12 months. What trends          interactivity will continue to play a
Computing at the CDN Edge has                has Verizon Media seen at this time         significant role in sports and events
the potential to meet the challenges         and how do you assist your OTT              streaming as OTT providers utilize
of a network tasked with delivering          and broadcast customers to                  technology to go beyond just replicating
more data at higher quality to               protect themselves from these               the traditional TV-watching experience.
end-users with minimal latency,              new threats?                                Based on the conversations we’re having
guaranteeing quality and reliable            The increasing frequency, severity, and     with customers, features I mentioned
experiences for broadcasters                 sophistication of cyber-attacks have left   above, like “watch together” and
looking to enhance or reinvent the           video streaming services open to            in-game trivia, are here to stay.
viewing experience.                          constant threat. The spectrum of               For more information go to
  Verizon Media’s one-size-fits-all          malicious activity is broad - from          verizonmedia.com

                                                                             www.csimagazine.com               spring 2021     11
Analyst corner

B
                                            It’s all just TV in the end
                  VoD is AVoD…except
                  when it’s SVoD; Most
                  studio D2C is both
                  AVoD and SVoD…            By Guy Bisson, Executive Director,
                  or is that hybrid?
                  Acronyms aside,           Ampere Analysis
                  whether we are
talking about local or global               subscription model that has so              the technicality of delivery is removed
Subscription Video on Demand                dominated streaming TV (and TV              from the equation and TV is again
(SVoD) services, Broadcaster                full stop) to date. But the streaming       divided simply into free or pay,
Video on Demand (BVoD);                     environment is growing so quickly           differentiation becomes the challenge.
international Ad-supported                  and the choice of services expanding           Differentiation, of course comes
Video on Demand (AVoD) or                   so rapidly that this won’t be the case      down to content and audience…two
studio Direct to Consumer (D2C)             for long.                                   things that are anyway intimately
streaming, it’s all streaming TV,             Our latest consumer research shows        related. What’s becoming very obvious
or more accurately still, just TV.          that more than one in four US online        is that distinct segments of viewer are
Increasingly the only difference a          homes now watches one of the major          emerging for the different streaming TV
consumer will be aware of when              international AVoD services (Tubi,          services and that audience segmentation
consuming these services is the             Pluto, Vudu, IMDBtv or Roku                 is not based simply on a free vs. pay
difference in business model. And           Channel). In the UK, 63% of homes           model. Broadly, paid streaming services
if we accept that it is all just TV         regularly watch one of the main             like Netflix and Amazon still skew
anyway, that boils down to free TV,         broadcaster (free) streaming services. In   towards the under 45s in their audience;
pay TV or a combination of both. I          both countries just under 60% of homes      free international streaming services
think we’ve been here before!               watch either Netflix or Amazon in any       like Tubi, Vudu, Pluto TV and the Roku
   The distinctions between the various     given month. In other words, all forms      Channel skew heavily towards over 35s
types of VoD that we in the industry        of streaming TV are becoming                (and older); and local broadcaster-led
talk about so freely today are red          ubiquitous. That’s an important             free or hybrid ad-carrying services are
herrings. AVoD was seen as the new          inflection point, taking us as it does      somewhere in the middle (although
trend to watch last year and into this.     from thinking about streaming TV, to        they profile more closely for age to
Today it is indeed growing fast, although   that point I described earlier, of          Netflix and Amazon). As the presence
still calling second fiddle to the          thinking just about ‘TV’ again. Once        or absence of advertising cannot explain

12   spring 2021          www.csimagazine.com
Analyst corner

the difference, it leaves content quality         GROWTH OF VIEWING US SVOD SERVICES
as the main determining factor.
   Analysis shows it’s not so much about
the breadth of content; with the
exception of Tubi and Amazon which
have particularly large content offers
all of the US streaming players have
catalogues that run to between 15,000
and just under 40,000 hours.
   What is clear is that regardless of
catalogue size or business model,
audience segmentation falls strongly
along content quality lines (judged on
average popularity of titles).
   To take the analogy of ‘it’s all just TV’
further then, studio streamers and
Netflix are the premium TV channels
of new; international AVoD fills the
thematic channel space; local broadcast-
led streamers fill the role they always
have: offering quality content with a          AGE PROFILE OF US STREAMING SERVICES
local twist.
   Original content will continue to
play into the strategies of all players,
and volumes of new original production
also align well with the quality and
audience continuum illustrated here,
with Netflix, Apple, Amazon and
studio streaming platforms leading
the charge to the benefit of their
content popularity ratings. Going
forward, ad-supported services will
simply be constituent part of the
increasingly voluminous in-home
streaming bundle, watched and
interacted with on the basis of the
content they provide. Our latest round
of consumer research shows that 40%
                                                    POPULARITY VS. CATALOGUE SIZE
of US online homes now take four or
more streaming services.
   As AVoD is subsumed into the overall
streaming bundle, the packaging,
combining and discounting of bundles
of streaming services will be the new
industry trend in a development I’m
dubbing ‘Compounding’. That brings
with it technical, navigation and data
challenges as well as the need for new
routes to sharing viewing information
as well as challenges around security.
We just need to remember that TV
is streaming; streaming is TV.

                                                       www.csimagazine.com             spring 2021   13
Covid special

Video piracy in lockdown
 Irdeto’s Mark Mulready talks to CSI editor Goran Nastic about the
 ways that video piracy has changed during the global lockdowns,
 sharing some key trends and findings
                                             explains. “They supplemented the lack       from social media (Facebook, Twitch
                                             of sport by accessing the library of        and YouTube), which is probably due
Mark Mulready is Vice

                                             content that many of the sports             to the fact that many of the signposts
                                             organisations made available. They          for live events are being placed on
President of Cyber

                                             basically put those archive games into      those sites.
Services, Irdeto

                                             their OTT libraries to supplement and         Because a lot of people are working
                                             maintain their customer bases. They         remotely that has extended the attack
                                             also became savvier in terms of how         surface for cybercriminals, who have
                                             they market themselves and how they         exploited this.
                                             connect with their customers and keep         “We’ve seen a massive increase in
                                             them sticky throughout the period.          ransomware attacks on organisations.
                                             There was a lot of Covid-19 discounts       We’ve seen the continuation of

T
                                             being offered, a lot of outreach to         credential thefts and ongoing credential
                                             customers, use of encrypted                 stuffing attacks occurring. That’s
                  he media and               communications like WhatsApp to             important in the context of video
                  entertainment              reassure customers they will continue       because a lot of the pirates are using
                  industry finds itself in   with their service, and to notify them      those compromised credentials to
                  an interesting             they are improving their VoD offering       access the content and re-distribute it.”
                  position at this           to supplement the lack of live sport.”        Irdeto has also seen things like
                  moment in time.              This is because in the case of live       session ID sharing, where the pirates
                  On the one hand,           sport, piracy dropped off in the same       are piggybacking off the CDN
Covid-19 has accelerated ongoing             way as all broadcasts when leagues shut     infrastructure of legitimate
digitisation and D2C streaming               down in the immediate Covid aftermath       broadcasters. So rather than having
services. In doing so, it has                of the first wave.                          their own hosted streaming servers they
heightened the security and piracy             “With live sports, the piracy there       simply redistribute the session IDs to
risks for those platforms.                   dropped right off, but it came back         end-users who are then piggybacking off
   What the last 12 months or so of          immediately as soon as the major            the legitimate operators’ CDN
intermittent global lockdowns have           sporting leagues came back we saw a         infrastructure.
confirmed is that video pirates have         return to levels we experienced prior to      “Attacks on OTT platforms will
found new ways to reach and engage           the pandemic — and it has stayed            increase because there is a real financial
with their customers, being forced to        consistent or even increased in some        motivation there because they don’t
adapt in much the same way as                cases since then as the leagues have        have to pay for that hosting infrastruc-
legitimate broadcasters and other            continued mostly without live               ture. They can piggyback off legitimate
service providers.                           audiences. People still want that live      operators,” explains Mulready.
   “What we saw with pirates was that        sports fix and there’s a real demand          In terms of the scale of the problem,
they took advantage in some respect of       there,” Mulready observes.                  different studies have highlighted the
the captive audience and the increased         When the sports leagues came back,        numbers. Parks Associates estimated
demand for content, particularly when        Irdeto saw an 18-fold increase in traffic   the revenue lost to piracy at around $61
it comes to P2P. We saw an immediate         to the popular streaming sites in May       billion in 2020 and predicts close to
spike in P2P traffic,” says Mark             and June of last year. The company          $70bn globally by 2023.
Mulready, VP of Cyber Services, Irdeto.      also saw a 50% increase in searches         Another big trend that Covid has
   “The pirates also became a bit savvy      for sports streams between June and         accelerated is studios more aggressively
in terms of the content supplied with        July 2020.                                  experimenting with direct-to-digital
their illicit streaming devices,” Mulready     Additionally, it saw links originating    releases, which has shrunk — in

14          spring 2021       www.csimagazine.com
Covid special

some cases completely — cinema-to-
digital windows.
   “That, again, heightens the piracy
risk and if people don’t put the
appropriate protections in place, then
this could be kind of a new piracy
bonanza,” warns Mulready.
   For content owners, because there’s
no box office revenues during COVID-
19, the digital revenues and D2C play
becomes increasing important. So the
value chain here has become
considerable expanded, as has once
again the potential surface area of
attack for pirates.
   An interesting by-product of this
development has been a decrease in
piracy spikes. With new titles, P2P,         are multi-jurisdictional in nature, with    for ads from pirate services on the first
traditionally there would be multiple        hosting servers and payment platforms       page of results.
spikes as the title moves through the        in different countries.                        “It’s right there in your face. If you’re
various windows and marketing                   “As a result, we still see this          a consumer you don’t have to look very
campaigns, but what Irdeto is seeing         discussion between the rights owners        far to find pirate services. It’s a multi-
now with the short windows is a huge         and operators as to whose responsibility    million dollar business and pirates are
spike in P2P piracy on first release, but    it is to address piracy, but I think now    very savvy in reaching their market,”
there isn’t the same duplication of those    the licensees are almost using piracy as    Mulready observes.
2nd and 3rd spikes seen before.              a negotiating point contractually. We’re       “The pandemic has grown the
                                             starting to see more cooperation and        streaming market, but it has also
Countering a big business                    collaboration in that regard,” says         created billing fatigue because for some
To address these issues, media               Mulready. “That type of cooperation we      people you need to access multiple OTT
companies need a combination of good         need to see more of, between rights         services to watch the content you want,”
technologies – a combination of robust       owners, operators, enforcement              Mulready surmises. “That in a way is
CA, DRM and watermarking. They can           agencies and industry bodies like the       giving people the motivation to
also use tools like AI to identify and       MPA,CAP and AAPA,” adds Mulready,           purchase an illicit streaming device
track suspicious behaviours.                 who also currently serves as                where you have thousands of channels
   “I don’t think there’s a broadcaster,     Co-president for AAPA, a leading pan-       from premium broadcasters around the
studio or OTT business that doesn’t see      European anti-piracy industry               world and tens of thousands of VoD
piracy as a risk to their business, but      association.                                titles available on the same device. That
there is no silver bullet,” says Mark,          “The trouble is the legislative change   has become quite attractive for people.
who recommends concurrent stream             is very slow and pirates are very quick     But what people don’t realise is that’s
management and CDN tokenisation as           in their ability to adapt. We need to       exposing them to a criminal
two important techniques open to OTT         move as an industry at the same pace as     organisation with access to their
operators. Irdeto provides these abilities   the pirates,” Mulready argues.              personal data or a malware risk.”
to its customers to help act quickly and        Security companies like Irdeto              What all this shows is that the pirates
manage the problem. The company also         work closely with agencies like Europol     have, once again, adapted to how the
provides 2.7bn DRM licences, and             and Interpol and local police to            market is moving. Piracy and that battle
growing, monthly.                            coordinate actions. In fact, Interpol       will always be there. Technology,
   While the technology piece is very        in April this year launched a new           business models, enforcement and
important, the industry can’t just rely      digital piracy unit.                        education all play a part. Moving
on the technology to address the piracy         Moreover, pirated content is very        forward, demand – for legitimate and
issue. It also needs consumer education,     compelling: it’s cheap and of good          pirated content - will continue to
legal accessibility to content and           quality in many cases. That is why the      increase and security needs to be front
enforcement, on both the criminal and        education piece is hugely important.        of mind, evolving as threats evolve
civil side. All of these pirate networks        Typing ‘IPTV’ into Google gives paid-    over time.

                                                                             www.csimagazine.com                 spring 2021      15
Covid special – Remote production

Out of chaos comes new order
The pandemic permanently disrupted traditional sports
production, accelerating distributed workflows and pushing
live further into the cloud, says Adrian Pennington

D
                igital transformation      use of distributed production models,         This transition was already in play
                is usually gradual,        particularly for esports and high-value    before COVID-19 but broadcasters who
                meticulous and tied        live sports                                would not have even considered moving
                up in corporate red           “The broadcasting industry              to remote production “are doing so very
                tape and                   pivoted to remote, cloud, and digital      quickly, either out of necessity or from
                conservatism. The          workflows almost overnight, showcasing     a desire to reduce costs and maintain
                global health crisis       its resilience and innovation,” says       quality,” says Szabo-Rowe. The Switch,
changed this dramatically.                 John Denison, VP of Innovation,            for example, have supported a major
  “COVID-19 has pushed broadcasters        LTN Global.                                North American sports league by
to embrace more remote production             “There’s been a huge acceleration in    keeping its commentators on-air using
models, a trend that would otherwise       this space for Tier2/Tier3 content with    remote production.
have taken many years,” says Robert        full integration of end-to-end workflows      “The ability to assemble a team,
Szabo-Rowe, SVP Engineering and            for OTT and social media distribution,”    situated anywhere in the world, and
Product Management, The Switch             agrees Per Lindgren, CTO and               collaborate on video production has
which has seen significant spikes in the   co-founder of Net Insight.                 been a key factor in keeping shows
                                                                                                       on-air, enabling
                                                                                                       publishers to deliver at
                                                                                                       scale without any
                                                                                                       geographical
                                                                                                       restrictions,” says Scott
                                                                                                       Lunn, head of content,
                                                                                                       Grabyo. “This
                                                                                                       highlighted other
                                                                                                       benefits to the industry
                                                                                                       including environmental
                                                                                                       sustainability and the
                                                                                                       option for more people,
                                                                                                       and importantly more
                                                                                                       women, to remain in the
                                                                                                       workforce when the
                                                                                                       demands on travelling
                                                                                                       are removed for
                                                                                                       production staff.”
                                                                                                         There’s been a rise in
                                                                                                       models where the
                                                                                                       different constituents of
                                                                                                       a control room are
                                                                                                       distributed. This involves
                                                                                                       having crew such as
                                                                                                       graphics, an EVS
                                                                                                       operator, programme
                                                                                                       mixer all in different
                                                                                                       locations and remotely
                                                                                                       connected to centralized

16   spring 2021          www.csimagazine.com
Covid special – Remote production

                                                                                                          jitter can destroy the
                                                                                                          content and the
                                                                                                          ability to remotely
                                                                                                          manage and control
                                                                                                          the production.”

                                                                                                            ST 2110 and
                                                                                                            compression
                                                                                                            It is the transport
                                                                                                            links from site or
                                                                                                            between ST 2110
                                                                                                            facilities requiring
                                                                                                            compression which
                                                                                                            can be problematic.
                                                                                                            For top tier events,
                                                                                                            JPEG2000 which
                                                                                                            displays near lossless
                                                                                                            compression has been
equipment. BT Sport worked with            available by consumer contributors led       the most common. JPEG-XS is
Timeline to do this in the UK and is       media companies and producers to             becoming increasingly popular due to
intent on keeping similar arrangements     accept webRTC streams onto the air,”         its ultra-low latency below 10 ms and its
permanent not least for the benefits to    says Denison.                                emergent integration into ST 2110
staff work/life balance.                      Cloud-based workstations using            workflows.
   A variation on the model retains all    PCoIP, and low-cost low bandwidth               “For the time being, most people
the processing and hardware within an      video transmission has become the            don’t use 2110 for remote production,”
OB truck at venue with control remoted     norm. Business teleconferencing tools,       says Szabo-Rowe. “However, JPEG XS
to operators who could be situated in a    smartphone cameras and webcams are           can be applied to deliver ST 2110 in
central control room or at home. The       in routine use in at home scenarios for      an uncompressed format, which
‘remote surface’ model means only          both production crew and on-air talent.      reduces the bandwidth by a factor
lower resolution feeds need to be routed      “The use of off-the-shelf collaboration   of five to ten and could see 2110
over the internet to software panels       tools keeps the media factories              become more widely embraced for
while uncompressed media can be kept       running,” finds the IABM in its recent       contribution feeds.”
locally for processing.                    trends roadmap. “Audiences started to           As ST 2110 is bandwidth-heavy, it is
   Outside broadcast provider Arena is     accept glitches, streaming issues and for    difficult and expensive to use broadly
proving how low the round-trip latency     that matter more often than not poor         for transporting a large number of
can be with a new set-up based on          video and audio quality; our                 signals. Denison explains that LTN
Grass Valley’s DirectIP solution and the   expectations for more 4K UHD in 2020         Global’s centralised production facilities
Net Insight Nimbra media acceleration      turned into Covid Quality.”                  have ST 2110 capability, “but we lower
platform. DirectIP requires only the          As the internet and cloud is              the cost of ST 2110 by using SDI in
camera heads to be deployed on             increasingly used for cost-efficiency and    a digital format and J2K to move
location while reducing the bandwidth      flexibility, Automatic repeat request        uncompressed signals into the end
by 90 percent.                             (ARQ) protocols such as SRT and              of the ST 2110 workflow with as
                                           RIST are used to provide a high-quality      little compression as possible. With
Covid-quality production                   stream. However, redundancy, security        computers and networks getting
Trade-offs between picture quality,        and synchronization need to be handled       faster and more powerful, ST 2110
latency and reliability, however, become   properly for high quality, high              will become more usable for
unavoidable when dedicated fibre is        availability workflows.                      backhaul transport.”
unavailable or customers prefer to use        “For broadcast quality production,           One of the complications of 2110 is
the internet for camera contribution for   PTP support in ST 2110 is required at        the control plane and connecting
cost or convenience. COVID-19 gave         both end-points,” says Lindgren. “100        systems together. Although NMOS
many productions no choice.                percent quality of service in the            specifications address this, The Switch
   “The challenges the pandemic            networks is critical for all remote          finds it best to connect at one location
presented and the lower standards          workflows. Packet loss, latency and          with 2110, transport it to another site

                                                                            www.csimagazine.com                spring 2021     17
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