November 2012
www.tvbeurope.com
TVBEurope 25 Round Table
Robert Hesmondhalgh: “We can innovate in what we’re doing so we become the best in breed in particular areas”
Bevan Gibson: “Multiplatform is very important and there is a big push within news specifically for servicing tablets”
wanted engineers to get to know them better. “If I know I have support from
that company, I’m going to buy from them again,” said Long. “It’s the back end stuff that is
critical,” said Negus. “It doesn’t matter how good the image quality is on the camera if it’s not working.” Grass Valley has radically changed the way it does customer support, particularly in Europe, bringing in people with an IT background “who are used to doing things according to way higher standards of support, so that we can try to change the way we do things.” “You can’t always compete on ‘our one goes a little faster than our competitors … Oh no, they’ve caught up with us, we’ll put on an extra switch on the back that does something else’,” said Hesmondhalgh “The iPhone is arguably not the best smartphone on the market, technically, but it still outsells, on a model by model basis, everything else. Not because of technical one-up-manship, but because of everything else around it,” including, as everyone agreed, Apple’s willingness to just swap it for a new one if something fails.
Purchasing decisions Live production systems are probably the most intricate, critical products broadcasters
buy. “How do you go about choosing something as complex as that, because you really can’t choose it on the feature set, because it’s such a huge feature set,” asked Bancroft. “With difficulty,” responded
Stevenson. “It’s down to support, durability, confidence, not having to make third parties talk to each other, and cost — but you can’t get too fixated on the bottom line.”
production system on the bells and whistles an editor likes,” added Stevenson. “It still happens,” others chimed in. “If you’re choosing an edit
platform or an infrastructure, the key things for me are: have I got confidence in that company [and] are they a company I want to work with,” said Long. Feature sets are a long way down the list. “Ultimately, it’s got to fit the
“But, we all think it’s all
unique,” said Ioannou. The broadcasters have recently been meeting to discuss rights, but he’d like to see this extended, and not just in the UK but in Europe. “I think it would actually help the manufacturers.” Stevenson asked: “Do we all
play into the suppliers’ hands by wanting to do our own thing – re-inventing stuff every time?”
“Whatever you sell me, I want Sky, BBC and MTV to want it. You’re going to maintain, support and develop it. Every time I get something bespoke, my overhead in maintaining that shoots up”
ITV News is wrestling with
this now, as it contemplates replacing its old Avid system. “All these issues are pertinent because it’s a big, complex beast.” Even seemingly simple decisions can have major implications, such as the choice between Sony or Panasonic cameras – “you can’t mix P2 and Sony, although some broadcasters have tried to.” These decisions also face
other live productions. “You have to think about the whole package,” said Ioannou. “In the past people have bought a new
particular way I want to work. If I want to work in AVC-I, I know which way I’m going to go because there is only one company” — although another is thinking of it. “You look at what fits the
business. You then look around at others to see what they’re comfortable with,” he added. While ITV competes with
Sky and the BBC, Ioannou believes there is a lot to be gained from coming together at an engineering level. Long agreed: “We’re all doing similar things.”
but have helped propagate this, admitted Negus. “Across the industry, the reality is that we could have helped stop that,” but in reality suppliers often like that everyone does things differently. However, the dynamics of
the broadcast industry are changing, not least the downward pressure on costs, “which basically means there needs to be more standardisation,” he added. “The idea of building it bespoke […] and charging a fortune
for doing it lots of wonderful, different ways, isn’t supported in the market anymore.” So, manufacturers need to look at what common pieces can be standardised, as the problems they address are essentially the same. “We’ve got to focus on how we achieve the desired outcome for our customers,” he said. Viacom International Media
Andrew Ioannou, ITV Suppliers say they hate it,
Networks’ technology strategy is to focus on standardisation within the organisation, and platform sharing, “so we’ve probably got fewer vendors in now than we had 10 years ago. While there’s a downside in terms of having more eggs in fewer baskets, it certainly gives us lots of cost and implementation advantages in reducing the number of systems we have to support and therefore the number of integrations you have to do as well,” explained Bertioli. When he buys a product,
he’d like it to run in a standard virtualised environment. “But sometimes you can’t do that,” pointed out Gibson. “We tried to run iNews on VMware, but Avid said ‘you can’t touch it’.” “It doesn’t work with
everything,” admitted Bertioli, “but we’re trying to push towards it where possible.”
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