122 Saturday 08.09.2012 theibcdaily In Brief
BBC signs with Red Bee
The BBC has signed a contract with Red Bee Media for access services. The contract – under the terms of which Red Bee Media will deliver more than 60,000 hours of access services per year on behalf of the broadcaster – runs until July 2019. It will see Red Bee Media continue to provide subtitling, audio description and signing services for the broadcaster’s portfolio of television channels. “Red Bee Media has a long and positive history of working with the BBC and we are delighted to continue our relationship for the next seven years,” said David Padmore, director, Access & Editorial, Red Bee Media. 1.B26
HBO goes for VMG HBO Europe has deployed the Video Multiprocessing Gateway (VMG) and TransAct Packager from RGB Networks to provide a complete transcoding and packaging solution for its HBO GO live streaming service.
HBO GO is a TV Everywhere portal that allows HBO Europe’s subscribers to instantly access over 1400 hours of exclusive programming wherever there is a broadband connection. HBO GO is being rolled out across the region, with most subscribers now able to enjoy the service; a live streaming capability was added in the autumn of 2011. 4.C78
Sonifex talkback The new CM-TB8 Talkback Control Unit from Sonifex provides eight channels of four-wire communication, housed in 1RU. It offers a headset socket on 5-pin XLR and mic/phones on XLR/stereo TRS jack, with the current selection indicated on the front panel. The gain for each input type can be individually set between +6dB and +68dB, allowing for a wide range of microphone types, with +48V phantom power also available. Small talk-level adjustments can be made quickly using the front panel rotary control with a maximum adjustment range of ±12dB.
An optional add-in card allows up to two channels to be connected to a telephone or GSM network, while a total of six configuration templates allow settings to be stored and recalled at a later date. 8.E61
We’re more than just a fat wallet, argues Unilever
Geoff Seeley: “We need to create content that goes beyond advertising”
Conference Analysis By Ann-Marie Corvin
As brands become media owners in their own right they want to be seen as “more than just a fat wallet”. Speaking at
IBC’s ‘Advertising Embraces Transmedia’ session, Unilever’s director of global media innovation Geoff Seeley revealed that the brand owner, which has more than 2bn global customers, wants to become a serious content partner.
The FMG giant is currently in talks with television production companies, Google and Facebook, to create content that goes beyond the 30 second TV spot. “We need to create content that goes beyond advertising. We have 40m customers who are engaging with us in social media activity so we need to think like a media company – leverage those followers and take advantage of those platforms,” Seeley said. As part of this drive, Unilever bought the rights to the Got Talent TV franchise in Thailand, sought a broadcast partner and brought it to air, incorporating its products into the show. Thailand’s Got Talent became the number one entertainment franchise in that territory with
Pixel-Probe finds rogue pixels
Cel-Soft By David Fox
Sensor defects, like dead pixels or even dust, are difficult to spot during production, but can annoy viewers. Broadcasters have had little option but to perform acceptance tests visually, but “detecting rogue pixels by eye among the six million RGB elements in images from HD cameras is almost impossible”, said Cel-Soft Managing Director Robin Palmer. High-end cameras are
usually calibrated to map defects, and offending pixels can be masked by digitally averaging the signals from neighbouring pixels. “Cheaper cameras use no such masking,” Palmer explained. “In any case, once a camera gets into the studio or the field, pixel defects can appear at any time as a result of age or temperature. “An uncorrected pixel error can show as coloured or black dots,” said Palmer. “In single-sensor cameras, it can appear as a tiny cross because of the way the pixels
Six years micing at IBC
Alex Lepges: Audio-Technica coordinating frequency usage at IBC since 2006
Audio-Technica By David Davies
The microphone requirements of the IBC Conference are being
supplied by Audio-Technica for the sixth consecutive year. In the largest conference venue, the Auditorium, a total of 12 wireless channels has been provided by Audio-Technica Artist Elite systems. Microphones employed for the venue include the head-worn BP892 Microset unit with dual-ear mount, BP893 MicroEarset with unobtrusive one-inch boom and AT899 omnidirectional lavalier. Audience interaction will be captured by AEW-T5400 wireless cardoid condenser mics, and lecterns have been equipped with ES915C18 gooseneck models featuring cardioid elements. “Audio-Technica has been doing this since 2006 – the first year of our involvement with the event,” notes wireless specialist and product manager Alex Lepges. 8.D78
are spatially sampled.” The Pixel-Probe algorithm automatically generates a statistical log of every pixel. It can then work out, over a short period of fluctuating footage from the camera, if any pixels are not working properly. It also identifies pixel changes since a previous check, or between different shots in post. “The increasing use of digital single-lens-reflex cameras for broadcast and even cinema production, along with other low-cost cameras, will make this sort of test process essential. Bigger
Pixel point: A defective pixel located by Pixel-Probe
and better high-resolution displays are also making uncorrected pixel defects more obvious to television viewers,” Palmer added. Pixel-Probe is compatible with Cel-Soft’s Reel-Check SoloQC live source or file analyser and Cel-Scope 3D realtime stereoscopic test and measurement system. 10.C49
Video switcher debuts
Roland By Carolyn Giardina
Making its debut is Roland’s V-800HD multiformat live video switcher with HD picture quality and eight multiformat channels with independent scalers, as well as a variety of output formats including a built-in multiviewer.
Roland says that the V-800HD’s inputs can all
Roland’s V-800HD has scalers on every input
individually scale, stretch, crop and zoom any video source to the optimal resolution. Supporting 1080p video signals at bitrates as high as 3Gbps – twice the rate of conventional HD-SDI – the V-800HD produces images from camera and computer sources. As well as upgraded 4:4:4/10-bit internal signal processing, the V-800HD includes a newly developed key-compositing engine that lets users adjust phase range, amount of chroma, and other parameters based on HSV colour space. The V- 800HD is aimed at live performances as well as corporate productions and web streaming. 7.J38
the PR coverage alone paying for the investment, according to Seeley.
Christian Bombrun, deputy MD of French connected TV provider M6 Web, added that reception from advertisers has been huge – with its catch-up service selling out of ad space. However he later added that revenues were still “relatively small” compared to TV spots. Image and audio recognition specialist Shazam, which made its name in creating a music recognition app, argued that mobile was the perfect second screen accompaniment to TV. David Jones, EVP Marketing Shazam Entertainment, said: “In the US we have 130m smartphones with 88% using them while watching TV. Around 40% of the time they are looking for information about the show.” A third of all this year’s NBC Superbowl ads were Shazam- enabled as well as the broadcaster’s commercials around the London 2012 opening and closing ceremonies.
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