72 OPINION CAN LIVE


“There is no going back – no matter what we do now, it’s too late to avoid climate change” were the words of foremost naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough to COP26 in November of last year. The earth is at a tipping point, and it’s the job of businesses to be part of the solution to stave off worsening the impact on the planet. At Sony, we believe a connected and healthy world is a sustainable one, and we work towards that through our own ESG efforts; by implementing our ‘Road to Zero’ plan, we aim to become carbon neutral by 2040. In comparison to its broadcast counterparts, live production is not moving as quickly. Beset by unique challenges particular to each production set, and a reliance on technology for its operations, live production is not yet living up to its sustainability potential. A complete overhaul is risky and expensive, but there are solutions.


SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGES IN LIVE PRODUCTION Quantifying emissions: In order to apply the appropriate changes to improve the sustainability of their operations, companies need to know the emissions they are producing and through which practices. Considering individual production needs: With transportation representing almost a quarter of Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions, 70% of which is road transport,


its undeniably a significant area of concern. Production format also comes into play – from recurring studio environments to on-location reporting. Battling uncertainty around power supply: Live production is mission-critical; without reliability in a site’s power infrastructure and network, its not fit for purpose. This introduces backups waiting in reserve to avoid worst-case scenarios, but this energy is often underutilised. Managing latency: Latency is the crux of quality live production, with delays being the antithesis to delivering true ‘live’ content. As cloud-based workflows have been instituted, latency issues have been reintroduced, yet both software and hardware solutions like codecs have helped to minimise this.


HOW TO WORK TOWARDS A MORE SUSTAINABLE PRACTICE Embrace modular solutions: Breaking a live production process down into modules can be time consuming in the short term but will provide operational benefit in the long term. Embracing modularity means that parts of the production process for which there are sustainable solutions can be changed, rather than should be. As live production businesses adapt to elastic workflows for their uniue needs, the business case for slashing over-provision will become clearer. With fewer underutilised OB


HUMAN-LIKE MACHINE TRANSLATION ENGINE XL8


BY ADRIAN PENNINGTON


A web-based platform for AI-based media localisation is debuting in Hall 6. MediaCat provides asset management, editing and automation


capabilities to complement XL8’s existing services. Services include text and subtitle translations; auto-subtitling based on speech recognition through ASR, auto- captioning, and synchronisation; and synthesised dubbing and voice-overs. Visitors to XL8 can also see


PRODUCTION BE SUSTAINABLE?


Norbert Paquet, Head of Live Production Solutions, Sony Professional Solutions Europe


“As live production businesses adat to elastic workflows or their unique needs, the business case or slasing oerroision will become clearer”


trucks on the road, organisations can look to cut transportation costs for equipment and staff while retaining their own quality of vision. In parallel, as live production companies’ place in the industry supply chain becomes greener, they can look to pass on these credentials to their broadcast customers in an environment of increasing ESG-related scrutiny. Remote control the production process: Despite the challenges associated with cloud systems and the strong network connection needed to enable them, these solutions are promising for the live production industry’s sustainability efforts. Cloud systems enable teams to work remotely, meaning fewer staff are required to be physically present at production sites, as well as greater flexibility for them to work on multiple productions at one time. In today’s corporate landscape, to be sustainable is to be successful. By embracing sustainable solutions, live production companies can future-proof their business as society and the wider broadcasting industry embrace change in the face of the climate crisis. 13.A10, 13.D203, 13.D204


a sneak peek of its EventCat platform prior to rollout. The platform complements XL8’s existing live subtitling capabilities for live broadcasts and events, but also provides an onoffline interpretation platform supported by a network of thousands of interpreters globally.


The company says that both


products will provide linguists with the ability to streamline their workflows while unlocking the full power of AI to support efficient and cost-effective media and conversational localisation. 6.C29c


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