special report ibc 2012


The International Broadcasting Convention reached its 44th anniversary this year and looks set to celebrate a healthy 50th in 2018. No sign whatever of the broadcast market imploding and the show returning to Brighton! What resolution television imaging will have reached by then is anybody's guess. IBC 2012 showed clear signs of a two-way stretch with increasingly powerful entry-level cameras, recorders, post-production and infrastructure products at one end. At the other, a strong push in favour of higher resolution delivery formats (currently meaning 4K and 8K). 2012 is a good time to be a broadcaster if you are funded by direct taxation or a compulsory licence. For everyone else, survival depends, as ever, on creative ideas and sound business management. David Kirk reports.


IBC 2012: reflections A


ffordability rather than technology was the big story this year. Like NAB, IBC has felt increasingly like a prosumer show in recent years which is part


of the industry's attractiveness. Almost every element of a television chain can today be bought for a few hundred pounds rather than the thousands or tens of thousands charged for top-end equipment. Broadcasters are as keen as anyone else on cost-efficient products provided these do not compromise operations. Some of the cheaper kit coming to market certainly needs careful pre-purchase evaluation, not least for its ability to tolerate 24/7 operation without overheating.


Affordability rather than technology was the big story this year.


Software-based products also have limitations given the very short commercial lifetimes of modern computer operating systems. That said, some fantastic bargains are to be had if a programme producer, post-production company, playout facility or mainstream broadcaster really wants to save money. Channel-in-a-box playout systems are an example with obvious potential for new start-up broadcasters and as a highly efficient way of expanding an existing television network.


Figure 1: EVS C-cast second-screen system.


Spectral sensitivity of modern cameras


Per Böhler (NRK, Norway), John Emmett (BPR) and UK-based camera- technology consultant Alan Roberts addressed the spectral sensitivity of television cameras. At IBC2011, Alan Roberts discussed the consequences of uncritically introducing LED based studio lighting into programme production. To realise the proposed TLCI-2012 (Television Lighting Consistency Index, 2012) fully, it is necessary to have information about the spectral sensitivity of modern TV cameras using CCD and CMOS sensors. Since camera manufacturers are reluctant to disclose such information, work has been undertaken at NRK to measure the spectral sensitivity properties of modern HDTV cameras. This enabled


12 l ibe l november/december 2012 l www.ibeweb.com


development of a proposal for a 'standard' television camera colour model. Nine cameras have been measured. They are all professional HDTV broadcast cameras with three CCD sensors and are from several different manufacturers. As many as possible of the cameras has been measured more than once to detect measurement errors and to make averages for smoother value sets. The data collected indicated relatively small differences between types and manufacturers. Two cameras from different manufacturers had spectral sensitivities so similar that they could have come from the same source. In many respects this is reassuring in the sense that the proposed 'camera model' will have negligible differences from the practical cameras broadcasters use. For many decades colour photography was plagued by errors due to the basic silver halide having more sensitivity to the ultra violet than the human eye. The shift in emphasis in the new universal world of silicon based imaging now lies towards problems in the zone lying between 750 and 1100 nanometre wavelengths. This zone has been exploited in consumer cameras as it improves low-light pictures. Unfortunately this is to the detriment of the colorimetry as lighting sources of a similar eye response may have vastly different infrared contents. In particular the current television studio


Continued on Page 14.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44