July 2014
www.tvbeurope.com
TVBEurope 45 Forum Graphics
What will the growth of 4K (or higher) mean to you?
Benovici: There are few ways 4K can be utilised in the broadcast world, the main usage of such technology is now for video walls in the studio. Our PowerWall solution is set to deliver up to 16K — yes, 16K — outputs from a single box that can be mapped over one or multiple video walls in the studio space. Such a high resolution image offers a pixilation free environment. Another area in which Orad is active is Channel in a Box. At NAB we presented the world’s fi rst 4K Channel in a Box solution, offering both 4K video and 4K graphics all rendered by the same box. Churruca: Brainstorm software, starting with the eStudio 3D render engine, is capable of creating graphics in 4K, and beyond, in realtime. 4K means higher hardware requirements, and because of this we are working with companies to make sure that computers, GPU and IO hardware can work in conjunction with our software to ensure the required realtime performance. Olson: 4K is frustrating. Just when you overcome the technological hurdles to get an adequate amount of headroom in graphics performance in one standard, the TV manufacturers come up with another one that cuts your performance down by a factor of four. That said, 4K presents new challenges that keep things interesting. It will potentially open up new markets and opportunities, as well. Looking through the lens of business, you can’t get too mad about that. Stadler: The challenges with 4K are reminiscent of the issues faced when switching from SD to HD. Vizrt graphics are not actually rendered until the very moment they are put on air, so this makes it very easy for us to build graphics in any resolution. As we’re not rendering anything out of the clips, everything is kept as metadata. Because of this we can deliver a 4K graphics package that’s essentially the same size and storage as an HD graphics package. The only issue then lies with the capabilities of
Darren Forster, Grass Valley
the render engine. Currently, we’re utilising the NVIDIA Quadro K6000 card which allows us to not only render 4K graphics live on air, but also take HD graphics packages and develop them for 4K as well. However, as resolutions increase so will the pressure on rendering power.
Does the growth of second screens aff ect your work for broadcast applications?
Benovici: Very much so. We are offering our own social TV solution called Social Media Hub. It offers a tool to aggregate, moderate and eventually take to air content generated by social media. At the same time, it offers the unique capability of publishing content from the fi rst screen to the second screen. Content that was on display in the fi rst screen is pushed as a clip to the second screen for additional usage. Fraser: Yes. On-air graphics and user interaction mechanisms need to go together much more than they do in the present day. The two track approach where activity in the second screen does not make it back to the broadcast is merely a starting point. The natural feedback mechanism for this feedback loop is through TV graphics. We will see more and
Alex Fraser, wTVision
more creative formats popping up in entertainment, news, politics and sports and when something works, I expect quick market adoption from other competing players. Harrison: The idea of ‘design once, broadcast everywhere’, is a nice thought, but not always achievable with identical assets. Sure, if the broadcaster wants exactly the same output on mobile as on TV, it’s easy to downscale. But this does not always suit smaller screens. What’s interesting in second screen is the integration of viewer feedback — how does or can the viewer interact with the broadcast? RT has worked with a number of broadcasters to provide interactive feedback into a programme via second screen using web technology. Kjellin: Absolutely. Second screen experiences are yet another output stream where content and artistic creation efforts need to be repurposed. For ChyronHego in particular, having a quite signifi cant leg in the gathering of realtime sports data, we clearly see and experience the need for relevant and effi cient methods of repurposing and parallelising both artistic and editorial creation for multiple media. Lempers: It does. We have developed a plug-and-play application interface — Social Media Hub — for second screens/interaction with users. And our technology is OEM’ed by many who develop for second screen. Stevens: Our Media Core and Adobe Media Encoder teams strive to stay fully up-to-date with all ingest and delivery codecs. We can quickly and
James Gilbert, Pixel Power
“With ever-increasing demand for video content, the market for graphics products is amazingly buoyant” Darren Forster, Grass Valley
easily empower broadcasters to deliver encode content for second screen, and ultimately stream it with the Media Server family. Outside of conventional broadcast, our Digital Marketing organisation is at the forefront of a revolution in content monetisation, optimisation, analytics and dynamic intelligent ad insertion.
Following a similar thought, seamless integration is a ‘buzz
phrase’ at the moment. What does it mean for providers of graphics solutions?
Churruca: Of course, integration of the graphics solutions in either video or IT environments is a must for any solution. But also, when a graphics project
is prepared in a collaborative environment, it could be shared by different vendors’ equipment, as designers would like to use the best-suited toolset for each process. Therefore, the ability to integrate within complex working environments — sharing information, data, images — is a common request on the graphics arena, and providers are often required to improve their inter-compatibility in terms of formats and workfl ows. Forster: All broadcasters have been through some form of cost-cutting exercise in recent years, and this has led to a reduction in resources available to assist integration efforts. Grass Valley’s iTX integrated playout platform provides an effi cient playout operation with no compromises in quality, fl exibility or control. It includes full branding graphics within the same playout server. No additional interfaces to external devices are required. Fraser: The fragmented nature of our market creates a very real and justifi able concern when designing and implementing workfl ows for a channel or programme. More than guaranteeing that a certain product works to specs, solution architects and designers have to worry about products working together reliably and worry
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 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52