live news & sport


the Indian and South African cricket stadiums that use it for direct pick-up of feeds from stadia in high quality without the conventional cost and bandwidth restrictions imposed by a DSNG uplink. On the distribution side, these feeds can be delivered using the global video network either directly to holding broadcasters premises, or to video switches such as the BT Tower in London or Azzuro in New York where most broadcasters are pre-connected. Fibre is a cost-effective way to


obtain and distribute high quality video: it is 50% cheaper to deliver a 20mb video over fibre than an 8mbp video on satellite, ensuring the delivery of higher quality content to viewers. Also, unlike satellite, fibre allows the delivery of different feeds to different markets without additional costs, thus enabling customisation for each rights holding broadcaster. Insertion of multiple cue points also enables local advertisement insertion for target markets, providing a revenue upside to the broadcaster. The move to fibre should reduce costs and increase monetisation avenues for broadcasters, while enabling them to address the customisation and quality challenges.


Using CDN to meet need for customisation


There are many CDN service providers today who not only optimise the delivery of content to multiple devices but also address the need for adaptive bit rate streaming, and provide a social media interface. Some of these technologies also offer streaming of content specifically addressing the low latency needs for live HD content, and enable the delivery to all leading platforms such as Android, Apple, Symbian, and Blackberry. The solutions from most service providers are adapted to offer a temporary burst of capacity to address peak loads encountered in live transmissions. This is a lot more cost-effective than developing complex demand estimation for a particular event. Most CDN providers also offer


seamless integration with a content management system to enable viewing of available content in a media library. This is extremely important for news networks intending to show availability of multiple videos on the same story. This addresses customers’ customisation needs, enabling them to select the type of videos they are


interested in, and at the same time allowing applications such as Zite or RSS feeder to pull out relevant stories. Similarly for sports, multiple camera


feeds can easily be configured on the CDN to enable customisation. This, coupled with social media integration, offers great value to the customer and the potential for additional revenues for the broadcaster.


Social media networks


Today’s consumer is highly influenced by social media, with news at the centre of this, but sports increasingly following the trend too. A lot of news and sports networks view social media integration as a necessary evil which adds costs but doesn’t provide any tangible revenues. However, leveraging the breadth of solutions available for social media integration, broadcasters can monetise content at a minimal or incremental cost. One of the examples of such


monetisation in sports arises from the ability to provide clips of sports events eg goals, penalties in a football game, or boundaries and wickets in cricket, to multiple content stores and leveraging the power of social media to drive traffic to these clips. Some of these solutions enable the inclusion of metadata and transcoding of relevant clips into different formats for multiple content stores, for example mobile service providers. Once a clip is provided in these stores, targeted social media tags from key ‘influencers’ on Twitter or Facebook can drive a deluge of traffic to these clips. The monetisation from this traffic could be obtained from subscription or more likely from ad insertions as pre- roll, post-roll or scrollers. There are several service providers that specialise in such dynamic ad-insertion by obtaining ads from the likes of Doubleclick to enhance monetisation based on traffic and type of users for a particular type of content. News broadcasters in particular need such social media influencers to guide the consumer through multiple locations for particular news content. In summary, the challenges facing


news and sports might seem daunting at first glance, but in fact they open up opportunities for new revenue streams in new markets. There are several tools available that enable news and sports broadcasters to tackle these challenges head-on through the delivery of high quality, customised and interactive content readily available on multiple devices.


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of course, costs have to be justified. This may impact on decision making by production teams who may prefer to choose an alternative camera, without appreciating that tighter & more exciting shots are possible with autofocus. Not surprisingly, there also appears to be a resistance


to the technology by cameramen. Focusing has always been a skill that requires considerable dedication, together with a lot of training and experience, and some may feel that these skills are being devalued because of cheaper solutions and pressure on budgets. Consequently, autofocus may be perceived as a threat to a cameraman’s livelihood. For the outside broadcast sports market, however, none of these fears should be a concern, simply because camera operators need to use high end equipment which requires expertise supported by knowledge and a successful track record. During the event, the overall reaction to the Canon


autofocus lenses was extremely positive. Here are just a few comments and reactions from cameramen and DoPs on the day: • “It was brilliant and very liberating but there is a learning curve. For example, I found myself framing for that little box in the middle, which is terribly dangerous but probably, given another 20 minutes, I would have that issue sorted out.” John Hoare, technical coordinator. • “Positioning and focusing the viewfinder focus point indicator box is quick and easy. It would be nice if the box could be made even smaller.” James French, freelance TV cameraman. • “I was pleasantly surprised by the speed and how fast it reacts. We tried a test where somebody walked out in front of us and it goes very fast to it. I found it was best to use it in the part time mode so that at least I can override at that particular time and get the best shot I can.” Drew Hartley, freelance TV cameraman. • “Absolutely sensational! It really seems to work exactly as you would want autofocus to, really fast, really grabby. There are certain camera positions where autofocus would be absolutely invaluable.” Paul Holman, freelance TV cameraman. It could be argued that as Canon was sponsoring and


part hosting this event that any criticism may have been toned down. However, there is no disguising the fact that most participants recognised that AF lenses are an important additional tool to the cameraman’s armoury. In addition, it was acknowledged that when shooting in HD, focus was extremely critical and that AF was a potential solution to alleviating this problem in some situations. There definitely seemed to be a preference for part time


mode. One technique - depending on the type of shoot - is for the cameraman to simply release the button and go into manual focus whenever he or she senses something might enter the foreground and interfere with the main subject. It was felt there were definitely applications in OB sports where AF could capture more exciting shots, for example, head-on in athletics. It was also recognised there were possible applications within drama, where focus was critical and a potential cost saving could be achieved. Perhaps the most significant outcome of the event was the recognition that essential and specific skills needed to be developed to operate AF successfully.


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