The Rescue Remote Solution in the Cloud for Production Teams

Getting The Job Done: Production Teams During COVID-19 Global Pandemic

As scientists and doctors work around the clock to save lives while global measures to flatten the curve (398,900+ COVID-19 cases to date) continue, such as global lock-downs and travel bans, journalists and production teams are experiencing extremely difficult and unique circumstances surrounding news asset collection and publishing.

For a majority of those working in the media industry, there is a newsroom epicenter in which all digital content is stored and shared via internal servers, as shown in the example below of a global newsroom:

A digital Newsroom in Brussels working with collaborators world-wide.

Now due to the global crisis, these production teams are faced with a seemingly impossible task of capturing, working with and publishing news content as quickly as possible.

With government restrictions limiting these employees’ access to a traditional centralized office, the ability to work collaboratively is now compromised as on-prem network bandwidth and server capacity are not prepared for such circumstances.

Due to the situation at hand, many teams are seeking modern day remote-production solutions to get the job done, without risking their health or going against the law.

The Great Cloud Migration is Here: Production Teams Focusing on Media Asset Management

From Press Agencies to News TV Channels, many teams are experiencing the same issue. Just accessing rough content has been an extremely difficult task for many employees world-wide over the past couple weeks.

Forced to work remotely in an effort to contain the epidemic, production teams are left scrambling to organize all of their digital assets and find a quick-fix solution to access and share these assets from a centralized point.

In response, many teams are turning toward cloud-based, digital media asset management (MAM) solutions, allowing employees to work from home. Companies are hence looking for a solution to access the content they either work with, share or sell.

But in this period of crisis, time remains the most precious factor.

Normally, media asset management is an all-hands-on deck effort that can take months to correctly plan and implement on a company-wide scale. During this international epidemic, the days, hours, minutes– even seconds count when it comes to accessing content that needs to be delivered to the public…content that has the potential to save lives.

Thankfully, technology is on our side.

Newsbridge Cloud-Based Newsroom: Go-To Solution for Some of World’s Largest News Agencies

It has been an extremely rewarding past couple weeks for the Newsbridge team, as various clients and prospects have turned toward our team as their remote production solution during this time.

Using a cloud-based Multimodal AI powered Media Asset Management Platform that allows for the kick-off of rough cuts in a matter of minutes, Newsbridge’s SOS remote production solution has been a life-saver for many, among which include some of the largest Press Agencies in the World.

The Newsbridge MAM solution for production teams promises unprecedented access to content from the comfort of your own home- promoting collaborative workflows among your shared content while your team is apart. In return, Newsbridge users are seeing an uptick in employee autonomy and ROI with a major decrease in production time.

Newsbridge’s cloud-based platform serves as the new newsroom epicenter during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In just a matter of minutes, teams are able to upload all of their digital media assets onto Newsbridge’s cloud platform. This pool of media assets is then automatically indexed via advanced AI technology (facial, language, object and context detection). At the same time, users are also able to plug and schedule live stream recordings to work in real-time on live news feeds.

Once rough cuts are created, teams can simply export their cart of selected clips to the destination of their choice or download them in a preferred format.

By prioritizing real-time collaborative production in a shared, cloud-based workspace, multiple team members can access and work on projects with custom roles.

Crafted with hands-on industry insight, the Newsbridge platform ingests HD and UHD industry standard formats such as H.264, HEVC, TS, XDCAM, AVC-Intra, XAVC, Prores, RTMP, LiveU LRT, Aviwest SafeStream, SRT and more.

In the case of top press agencies working with Newsbridge, employees are able to download their rough cuts and send directly to their clients in either a file or link format.

A Solution with Short Term Benefits and Long-Term Results

Despite being the go-to remote production solution during times of crisis to access and share digital content, the Newsbridge Platform offers an extensive list of advanced functionalities that give Press Agencies, TV Channels, journalists and production teams an edge in production workflow processes.

For a more complete look at Newsbridge functionalities such as Cognitive Indexing, Automatic Transcription, Live Production Tools and our Signature Multimodal AI, take a look at our existing features in our latest article, or feel free to explore the site.

Rescue Remote Production from Newsbridge: Free 15 Day Trial

In times of crisis, it is important to think collectively and help each other out.

We would like to open up our platform with a free trial run for production teams during this time, which also happens to be a large-scale quarantine period for a majority of countries- and hence the most difficult time for production teams.

For more information to access this offer, please contact our team here.

Multimodal Series: The Surprising Link Between The Human Mind and Machine Perception

Human Decision Making: When Do We Use Confidence Levels?

Confidence levels can be used anytime one is estimating or predicting something. Examples include: business, engineering, medicine, technology…or just day-to-day life.

As humans we use confidence levels regularly. Whether you decide to dodge an aisle at the grocery store because you thought you saw your chatty neighbor, or using evidence and intuition to convict a suspected criminal during jury duty, your mind is in a constant state of perceiving its surroundings. It makes decisions based on those perceptions via an inherent estimate of confidence.

And so how does your mind generate confidence levels? Well…this all happens in a split second. The brain using an innate multimodal approach to better perceive external scenarios and draw conclusions. In the first phase of the brain’s decision-making process, most people rely on their 5 senses.

This is called a cognitive shortcut, or heuristic technique, which is immediate and instinctive, but not guaranteed as optimal (examples: an educated guess, sensory instinct etc).

A second layer would then be cross-checking this analysis with previous experience. This indicates a more advanced thought process which either validates or invalidates the brain’s initial confidence level in making a decision.

This logic is based off of basic evolutionary traits that allowed our ancestors to not just survive, but live longer. Making correct decisions meant outliving the bad decision-makers.

When looking at modern day science, confidence levels become more statistics-based and less intuitive.

Confidence Level in Statistics vs. Machine Learning

Do you remember your first Statistics class? The heavy textbook you never used, the lecture hall full of students… and (if you were paying attention) a board that looked something like this?

The image above is an example of estimation statistics. You can see a parabolic representation of a confidence interval (CI) of 0.44 and 0.64. For reference, the CI is the range of experimental results expected to contain a parameter of the population of interest. The confidence level is 95% (probability that you would get similar results if you repeatedly run a test). With this information, we create a data set that is “trusted” with 95% confidence.

Just as your statistics professor painstakingly calculated these data sets on a blackboard, neural network models now provide results much quicker. They also deliver a smaller margin of error that could be caused by humans.

As applied to machine learning, a minimum confidence level is pre-defined by an AI model with existing thresholds to validate results (remaining empirical).

This solution is still based on estimation statistics – except instead of taking 30 minutes, data sets are populated instantaneously.

Neighbors in Tokyo?

That’s kind of heavy, so let’s take a lighter example.

Say you live in New York and take a summer vacation to Tokyo. You just finished watching an amazing sumo match, and now you are walking back to your hotel, enjoying some evening sight-seeing.

Suddenly, someone catches your eye as you’re walking through the crowded streets. It’s a familiar face, but you can’t quite pinpoint his identity. As you pass him directly and get a closer view, you realize this person looks a lot like your neighbor in Manhattan, Paul Johnson.

But it can’t be, so you keep walking unphased. The likelihood is low. Paul being in the exact same place as you at the same time, so far away from home- it’s nearly impossible in your mind. And well…nearly impossible statistically-speaking, too.

…Except that it was Paul.

As a recap, in this case, you:

  • Recognized a familiar face in an unfamiliar environment
  • Cross-analyzed what you sensed (saw) with your previous experiences and knowledge
  • Had doubt, and a limited level of confidence due to conflicting analysis

This example showcases the immense power of the human mind.

The missing element was context, as you saw his face, but did not have the existing knowledge that he was indeed on vacation in the same city as you.

In this instance, perhaps your innate confidence level was a 2 out of 10…also showing how much the human brain relies on the contextual approach to making correct decisions.

When Do We Need Technology’s Help? Machine Confidence

Just as chemistry and neural architecture of the brain helps humans draw conclusions and recognize faces, AI is able to use statistics and neural networks to detect various components.

Such elements include faces, objects, language and context, just to name a few.

Similar to how humans use basic senses and contextual information to make decisions and estimate confidence levels, AI algorithms can now replicate this process.

Now machines are able to detect what’s in a video, for example, via cross-analysing facial recognition, speech-to-text, metadata…aligning sources of data to better perceive results, in record-breaking time.

That said, just as the human brain has margin for error, the same can be said for deep learning. After-all, the same algorithms were created by humans.

In no way does AI take the place of a human brain- but it does emulate the brain’s perception process via multimodal analysis factors.

Multimodal Analysis and Confidence Levels in Practice: Real-Life Application

Understanding and perceiving the world around us originates from a mixture of fascination, necessity and survival. Nowadays in a digital-focused society, many entities understand the importance of intaking information quickly and on multiple levels.

Here are some examples:

Automation Industry: Tesla Says Autopilot AI Technology is 9x Safer than Human Drivers

In its third quarter 2019 update, Tesla stated that autopilot technology is “9x safer than the average human driver [in the U.S.].” The report supports this statement with the fact that autopilot cars were only involved in one accident for every 4.34 million miles (7 million km) driven during the quarter- (in the U.S) whereas the average human driver related accident is one for every half million miles (800 million km). In terms of machine decision making- the confidence level of Tesla autopilot technology is not just high-functioning it is life-saving.

Mandatory Facial Recognition: Cell Phones in China

Perhaps you heard about it in the news. Now China is making facial recognition mandatory for all mobile phone users to protect cyberspace citizens against fraud. Telecom companies now use artificial intelligence among other technical methods to make extremely important decisions when it comes to online identity- so it could be fair enough to say that confidence levels must be extremely high.

Multimodal Cognitive Video Indexing for Media and Broadcast Entities

Developers at Newsbridge created a system of multimodal analysis that uses machine learning to train AI and adapt the algorithm. More specifically, journalists can upload all images and videos to a secure cloud-based platform. From there, digital content is automatically tagged and indexed via multimodal facial recognition (visual), object detection (tactile) and speech-to text technologies (audio), among others. This technology also has the ability to read any “open text” sources to improve results across various scenarios.

In Summary

Perhaps one of the main takeaways is that as machine learning and AI continue to advance, human logic and decision-making remains at the heart of machine perception.

In turn, many other technological advancements and revolutions to come. Just as humans use confidence levels for making important decisions, today multimodal AI machines use a similar rationale to make judgements and take action in a short period of time.

This is leading to more profitable, secure and sometimes life-saving results.

Multimodal AI: Computer Perception and Facial Recognition

The Multimodal Approach: Explained

“Our intuition tells us that our senses are separate streams of information. We see with our eyes, hear with our ears, feel with our skin, smell with our nose, taste with our tongue. In actuality, though, the brain uses the imperfect information from each sense to generate a virtual reality that we call consciousness. It’s our brain’s best guess as to what’s out there in the world. But that best guess isn’t always right.” – Dr. David Ludden Ph.D.

The quote above comes from Dr. David Ludden, Ph.D and professor of psychology at Georgia Gwinnett College. In this excerpt, Dr. Ludden emphasizes the fact that human perception is indeed, subjective.

Furthermore, Ludden explains how the brain uses a multimodal approach (multiple senses) to better perceive external scenarios and draw conclusions.

What is Multimodality?

Multimodality- a term that is slowly but surely infiltrating our everyday lexicon. But what does it actually mean, and where does it come from?

Derived from the latin words ‘multus’ meaning many and ‘modalis’ meaning mode, multimodality, in the context of human perception, is simply that- the ability to utilise multiple sensory modalities to encode and decode external surroundings. When combined, they create a consolidated, singular view of the world (source).

This is not a new idea. In fact, it stems back to our earliest ancestors, hundreds of thousands of years ago. In the primate world, according to Comparative Psychologists, language itself is rooted in multimodal origins. They believe that communication is segmented into three modalities including: vocalizations, gestures, and facial expressions.

Consequently, it could be said that the multimodality approach to perceiving the outside world is, in fact, human nature. So in the context of technology, how then are machines replicating this human-associated, innate ability? What is Multimodal AI?

Research suggests that the brain treats auditory and visual speech similarly, indicating speech perception is inherently multimodal

Multimodal AI

Multimodal perception transcends the world of technology. When applied to Artificial Intelligence specifically, combining multiple AI data sources into one model is known as Multimodal Learning (source).

That said, the multimodal approach to human perception has evolved over time, resulting in a more complex (and powerful) understanding of the world around us.

At the same time, this approach can be applied to technology’s ability (specifically the evolution of AI algorithms) to evolve and recognise scenarios using multimodal AI recognition on a digital sphere.

Machines Delivering the Truth Via Elimination of False Positives

Going back to the idea of understanding the truth via human multimodal analysis, the same can be said for machines. There is an interesting parallel between “Truth” and AI’s “False Positive”, or the truth as provided by a computer. More specifically, every Cognitive Algorithm provides a “confidence score”. The higher the score, the higher it can be trusted…the more it correlates to the truth.

Today, machines are closer than ever to replicating human perception of the external world. The catch? Mainstream machine learning or machine perception is more closely related to a human dream. Many machines are only programmed to recognise one mode and missing “the big (multimodal/multi-sensory) picture”. There are often floating elements, with an unclear idea of what is going on.

Without the component of cross-variance multimodal perception, eliminating false positives, and adding context, the pursuit for truth is lost in translation.

The big idea here is that false positives must be accounted for (i.e. a machine understanding that a picture of a person is not necessarily the real-life person). This is the idea of advanced, multimodal machine learning.

Examples: Multimodal Technologies

According to the European Language Resources Association, multimodal technologies refer to “all technologies combining features extracted from different modalities (text, audio, image, etc.).” Sound familiar?

Some such examples would be:

  • Automatic Speech Recognition (Audiovisual).
  • Person Identification (Audiovisual).
  • Event Detection (Audiovisual).
  • Object or Person Tracking (Audiovisual).
  • Head Pose Estimation.
  • Gesture Recognition.

Just as we have established that human perception is subjective, the same can be said for machines. In a time when machine learning is changing the way humans live and work- AI, using the multimodal approach, is able to perceive and recognise external scenarios. At the same time, this approach replicates the human approach to perception, that is to say with flaws included.

More specifically, the benefit is that machines can replicate this human approach to perception of external scenarios. Not only that, but certain AI technology can perceive information up to 150x faster than a human (in parallel with a human gatekeeper).
With this new development, we are getting closer to mimicking human perception, and well…the possibilities are endless.

Limitations: Interpretation is Flexible not Fixed

While it is well known that humans possess this extraordinary ability to encode and decode complex real-life scenarios via a multimodal approach, there are still limitations.

Despite our innate and advanced ability to recognise a variety of objects, situations and people- the world around us is not always how it appears (feels, sounds, etc.).

As Psychologist D.R. Proffitt puts it:

“Perception is not fixed: it is flexible.” – Source

As humans, we naturally create subjective perception. Evolutionarily, our brains were not programmed to experience senses individually. Therefore, as previously stated, we naturally experience multi-sense perception (i.e. visual and audio) to mold a more accurate consciousness of the world.

Human Psychology: Multimodal Factors of Perception

In truth- what humans perceive in the external world is actually a direct reflection of our corresponding psychological state. That is to say, humans can perceive external scenarios in extremely different ways depending on a multitude of factors. Such components include but are not limited to: memories, past experiences, culture, gender, age, interests, education, etc.

Just as these cognitive applications influence human perception- the same can be said for machine learning and its associated “learned” cognitive applications.

If we want to understand and, in turn, communicate the truth, or what we deduct to be the truth based on a global, multimodal view, we have to take multiple factors into account. This is something our brain does automatically.

For the sake of simplicity, let’s look at the multimodal factors of perception and communication that we use most often as humans:

1. visual
2. audio
3. knowledge/learning (context)

Things are not always as they appear: Example, Greta Thunberg

When missing one mode of perception, things can get tricky. Take the following example, for instance:

To the average eye, Greta Thunberg looks and sounds like an average 16 year old, and if you didn’t know her or her story you may think she lived an average life.

In fact, if you watch the news- you probably do recognize this swedish teenager who became one of the most prominent environmentalist activists of her time after initiating several protests outside Swedish parliament in 2018. Her message was clear and concise: to call for more aggressive action against climate change on an international level.

Here is a video in which Thunberg warns viewers about the impact of climate change.

Seemingly overnight, Thunberg spearheaded the “School Strike for Climate Change” which garnered global attention. Students from all around the world took part in Fridays for the Future, in which they skipped school to protest for a better world with a smaller collective carbon footprint.

After learning about her initiatives via contextual international news commentary, the face of this swedish teenager took on an entirely new role. Thunberg is now a symbol- the face of revolution and combating climate change on the largest scale ever known to mankind.

This example proves that sometimes:

  • What we see can change what we hear
  • What we hear can change what we see
  • What we know contextually can change what we see and hear

Stay tuned for our next article which will dive deeper into Multimodal AI Application via Confidence Levels.

About Newsbridge

Newsbridge is a cloud-based solution offering video indexing tools based on Multimodal AI contribution for publishers and broadcasters.

Taking into account facial, object and scene recognition with audio transcription and semantic context, Newsbridge provides unprecedented access to content. Whether it be derushing, archiving or investigative research- the solution allows for smart media asset management.

Today our platform is used by journalists, editors, TV Channels, documentarists, production houses and sports federations in contribution and post-production workflows.

Radio continuity in a world of extensive remote operations

#stayathome #besafe

On-Hertz strongly believes in the role that radio has to play as a media of proximity to keep people informed, entertained and connected. In the light of ongoing confinement and travel bans policies around the globe, this role increases in importance even more.

In these hectic times, we would like to help you conciliate the need to ensure business continuity while coping with health-related requirements.

Lumo is a full radio studio running on a simple laptop that is designed for self-op remote broadcasting. It is very intuitive yet powerful. Lumo includes everything you need to run your radio show from your living room!

Lumo – A fully virtualised radio studio running on a simple laptop

Since we all hope this situation is temporary, On-Hertz is happy to provide you with monthly licenses (that’s one of the advantages of software). And, if you never tested Lumo, the first 2 weeks are on us so you can assess for yourself whether it is the right tool.

Take care, and talk to you soon!

The On-Hertz team

How the coronavirus outbreak is effecting the broadcast and media industry

The Covid-19 pandemic means almost a quarter of the world’s population is on lockdown. Here, IABM head of insight and analysis Lorenzo Zanni looks at some of the effects on the media and broadcast industry.

IABM has been running an international survey over the last 10 days asking broadcast and media professionals to assess the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on their businesses. The survey is still running and everyone is encouraged to contribute their responses here – but we already have enough responses to begin to paint a picture – and it’s not pretty in many areas, although there are pockets of opportunity too. Clearly the broadcast and media industry, like every other sector, is feeling the negative impact of the virus, particularly when it comes to events, advertising revenues and media technology investment. Let’s have a look at each of these effects:

Events

Media technology is an international sector that has historically focused on high-value, C-level sales that are better conducted face-to-face. Media technology trade shows are not only an extremely valuable vehicle for closing deals but also a place for discussing future technology roadmaps with customers openly, particularly at a time when technology is changing so rapidly and unpredictably. Losing access to all of this is undeniably damaging and will prevent some deals closing as well as some important discussions taking place.

In response, IABM has leveraged its unique position to provide a one-stop, up to the moment online portal for the whole industry – the IABM Virtual Platform – intended as a central hub for the broadcast and media industry, and a constantly growing repository of the information that technology buyers need to continue to operate successfully during the coronavirus pandemic.

Advertising Revenues

​Advertising revenues are highly correlated with the performance of the economy. As the world has become more globalized, countries’ macroeconomic performances have gradually grown more connected. This has made the world better and more prosperous; but has also increased its volatility and inherent risks. The better response to risk and volatility is diversification, which is why several commercial broadcasters such as ITV have tried to diversify their revenues away from advertising and towards other funding sources such as subscriptions and content licensing. However, advertising still accounts for a large share of the media industry’s revenue. The impact of coronavirus on countries’ macroeconomic performance is and will be real and extremely damaging.

The chart below shows this starkly – and technology suppliers are even more pessimistic than their customers, the broadcast and media companies. To put the scale of this in perspective, ITV in the UK was already forecasting a 10% drop in advertising revenues in early March – even before the full effects of the pandemic were generally understood in the UK. The cancellation of physical events – particularly sports – is also partly responsible for this drop, and the knock-on effects for sports-based Pay-TV broadcasters, unable to fulfil their obligations to customers, are yet to be fully felt. With people staying at home and consuming only necessities, there is a lack of demand for many types of goods – and supply – through the lack of demand as well as through increased uncertainty. In the media industry, this is leading to a sharp decrease in advertising spending.

Media Technology Investment

​The trends mentioned above along with the general climate of uncertainty and disruption will very likely negatively affect investment in media technology – as the revenue outlook for suppliers responding to our coronavirus tracker survey shows. Our Tracker results below also shows where the drop will be most pronounced – and which areas will be protected or even benefiting, with investment going down for 38% and up for 21%. From a BaM Content Chain® perspective, Connect is the only segment showing a positive outlook as end-users try to put infrastructure in place to work remotely – a major technology shift.

Events not happening may prevent some deals from taking place as discussed earlier. Broadcasters exposed to declining advertising revenues will experience greater financial pressure, which would result in lower budgets for media technology investment as well.

Moreover, the cancellation of sports events is set to greatly impair the revenues of broadcasters that deliver them to viewers. These broadcasters have spent huge sums of money on rights and technology infrastructure to enable these events – most of this investment may be already a sunk cost.

This is also not a good time for disruption as many media technology suppliers are in the middle of a transition to as-a-service models – see our Adapt for Change report for more info on this – which is significantly affecting their cash flows. However, from another, more positive perspective, this could be the best time for this external shock to happen as the industry is more dependent on software revenues than it has ever been before according to IABM data.

In fact, the impact of the virus on demand will arguably be greater for hardware manufacturers who are seeing their supply chains being disrupted by the virus and highly rely on trade shows to drive sales. Suppliers in the middle of the transition to as-a-service models may push their next-generation software products more aggressively to compensate for the decline in legacy offerings. Software suppliers need to be ready for a rapid move away from licence-based sales to subscriptions as broadcasters squeeze their outgoings.

These are issues that the industry needs to face in the upcoming months, as the virus continues to spread worldwide. However, this is a dynamic and resilient industry that has the strength to adapt to these changing dynamics. Below, we have included some of the positives of this crisis for the broadcast and media industry:

Temporary Move to Virtual

​People will not stop meeting other people for conducting business. The face-to-face element of interactions, particularly in an industry like media technology where high-value technology discussions are essential, will remain key. However, the whole industry needs to temporarily adapt to this moment of disruption and go virtual. Fortunately, there are a lot of conferencing tools like Zoom to conduct virtual business meetings in an effective way. People will use them if they are forced to do so by the virus. As an example, Microsoft has seen a 500% increase in Microsoft Teams meetings in China after the outbreak.

Of course, it will be easier to conduct demos for software providers. For those that have the possibility to do so, it could be worth experimenting with SaaS selling models like free-trials as well – again, see our Adapt for Change report for more info on this. Some software suppliers like Signiant and Limecraft have already announced initiatives to enable customers to have unlimited users. We do not see virtual as a substitute for trade shows but rather as a powerful complement to them. More reliance on virtual should help suppliers have more continuous relationships with their customers as well. A more proactive digital presence by suppliers through tools like webinars and customer surveys should at least partly compensate for the lost time at events. As mentioned earlier, the industry is more reliant on software than it has ever been, which makes this a good time for making a temporary move to virtual.

Greater Demand for Entertainment

​Earlier, we have talked about how advertising revenues are being hit by the macroeconomic crisis created by the virus. This does not really apply to subscriptions. Subscriptions are a more stable and predictable revenue source which comes directly from consumers. Yes, consumers will be hit by the decline in business activity but expect governments to intervene to mitigate the socio-economic fallout of this situation. Italy provides a good example of this. The Italian government has launched an initiative of “digital solidarity” to incentivize cultural, educational and entertainment businesses to provide their services free of charge during this critical period.

Also, expect consumers to drastically shift their consumption preferences during this period and view digital entertainment products more as necessities as they increasingly spend more time at home. This does not apply to all types of subscriptions but mostly to those that rely on scripted content – as noted earlier, sports may be strongly hit by the cancellation of events. As a result of more countries adopting lockdown measures, streaming consumption is skyrocketing, which has led several OTT providers such as Netflix to cut the quality of their streaming. If we look at the revenue sources of media technology suppliers, subscriptions are also more likely not to be hit by the more uncertain economic environment compared to large license fees and deals – see chart above.

Virtual Media Technology Trends

​Coming back to media technology investment, although uncertainty will impair spending as in most other sectors, some broadcast and media organizations may be forced to take a more digital approach to cope with the increased risk of physical contact. We have often highlighted how media technology buyers have been inclined to take a “wait-and-see” approach when investing in new technologies such as cloud and IP. In some sectors, there has been some aversion to the risk of investing in new technologies due to their potential impact on current operations. Risk preferences may shift radically as a result of this external shock. Our Tracker certainly underlines this.

Technologies such as cloud are key to successful direct-to-consumer models and enable workflows to be conducted remotely. As direct-to-consumer benefits from the greater demand for entertainment and physical contacts are minimized worldwide, more investment could go into virtualizing operations. This transition is not going to happen overnight as it is a complex one. However, the current crisis may push some technology buyers to accelerate their move to safeguard their employees and effectively continue their businesses. According to our analysis of text feedback received through our tracker, many technology buyers are likely not to go back to where they were before after they have gone virtual and experienced the benefits of cloud-based technology.

Creative Innovation

​Finally, this crisis is certainly going to spur some creative innovation in terms of new programming formats and workflows as demand for entertainment rises while supply shrinks dramatically. Sports broadcasters for example may be leveraging their archives to create new content for fan engagement as well as experimenting with new formats that do not rely on live production. News is already adapting to the lockdown requirements with several programs around the world gathering experts’ input through consumer video technology. These trends may also produce some lasting changes in the industry.

The coronavirus crisis is going to change business in 2020. The broadcast and media industry will be affected by the shock created by this but could take some actions to adapt to it. There is no way to be sure of the real effects of this crisis but in a time of such uncertainty it is worth looking at the glass half full and understand how we can all make the most out of the current situation.

Video Over IP E-Learning Course

Video Over IP

This course consists of 7 modules, providing a thorough grounding in the principles and standards of Video over IP (Internet Protocol). Starting with the basics of using IP as a replacement for SDI, it goes on to look at RTP (Realtime Transport Protocol) streaming and the fundamentals of IP multicast, and then covers SMPTE ST 2022, SMPTE ST 2110, AES 67, AMWA NMOS, and PTP (IEEE 1588) – the key components of an IP based studio, OB truck or broadcast centre. The standards are dealt with in a way that is both clear and understandable, while at the same time giving the detail needed to be useful in real practical situations.

The course will appeal to anyone with basic knowledge of IP and SDI who wants to gain a good understanding of how IP is transforming the infrastructure of broadcasting and content production.

IABM Members (members are also eligible for complimentary places, please email info@theiabm.org to check) – €210 / £175 / $250

Non IABM Members – €420 / £345 / $495

Click the links below to purchase this course (eligibility will be checked)

Member Rate
Member Complimentary
Non-Member Rate

LTN Virtual Conferences and Events

Is your organization, speaker, host or presenter cancelling attendance at a scheduled event? Is attendance expected to be down this year? Are you grappling with how to service attendees who want to participate but just can’t make it in person?

A unique suite of LTN modular services can be bundled to provide complete end-to-end conference and training seminar support enabling event planners and producers to reach virtual attendees around the world. Through live video and interactivity, remote conferences provide many of the same benefits - networking, interaction, product demonstrations, learning and accreditation - as traditional in person sessions. With today’s constraints on travel, LTN Virtual Conferences allow the show to go on. LTN’s Virtual Conferences and Events services include:

  • Live video transport either from connected locations, using an LTN Flypack or other connectivity tool
  • Complete professional production services including crewing, gear and production vehicles as needed
  • LTN’s huge footprint of connected studios and venues available to host speakers, presenters and trainers
  • A complete webinar and webcasting platform — live or on demand — including all required data collection (for training accreditation) and real-time Q&A
  • Embeddable multi-platform video player, CDN and analytics
  • Closed captioning, archiving, clipping and craft editing
  • Transcoding and delivery services to owned digital properties as well as social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, YouTube and LinkedIn

LTN is uniquely positioned to produce and manage video rich remote conferences and events through a one-of- kind combination of a low latency video transport network with global reach, digital workflow services and professional production services.

The LTN Network connects over 3,000 locations worldwide. The network includes a diverse array of production studios, teleports, switching hubs, broadcast stations and other venues enabling program participants to present from anywhere. And if by chance a location is not on the network today, venues and individuals can connect to the LTN Network very simply using an LTN Flypack.

LTN Flex is an ultra-high-quality centralized production solution. Flex reaches all verticals and market segments while bringing production quality to the next level.

LTN Transport has revolutionized the video transport industry with an innovative, IP-based live video delivery service that meets or exceeds broadcast quality standards. LTN Transport has been widely adopted by major broadcasters, media companies, content creators and enterprise content producers.

LTN Virtual Conferences and Events services available for:

  • Summits
  • Town Hall Meetings
  • Investor Meetings
  • Training Sessions
  • Conferences
  • Trade Shows/Conventions
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CDN Technologies in Different Live Streaming Scenarios

BASHIAN Cloud

The rise of the streaming industry has led to rapid evolution of live streaming applications, platforms and products. As live streaming scenarios become increasingly diversified, the world is pressing for fast development of video streaming technologies. Among all the technologies that matter, the content delivery network (CDN) plays a critical role in delivering and ensuring a seamless streaming experience to users across different geographies. In this blog, we will take a close look at the most popular live streaming scenarios and zero in on the CDN technology requirements associated with each of the scenarios.

1. E-Sport & Game Streaming

Gaming and e-sports audiences are unique. They have no problem sitting in front of a screen for a long time while interacting with content. The sophisticated gameplay, community interaction, and the character of the broadcaster all work in different parts to make game streaming more engaging and compelling than many other forms of content online. As the community grows, game streaming has evolved to more than one-to-many live broadcasting. Game streaming nowadays involves chat rooms, subtitles, face filters, voice SDK, and more. At the same time, game streaming is more performance-sensitive than ever as any delays or lagging would directly lead to a loss in audiences. It’s crucial to select a CDN provider that has a globally distributed edge network with game streaming specific features to provide audiences a seamless and interactive experience around the world.

2. VR (Virtual Reality) Streaming

The main difference between VR streaming and traditional video streaming is that the bit rate for the former is much higher. While the bit rate for traditional video live streaming may be of several or dozens of megabits, that of VR streaming may start with gigabits. The main feature of VR streaming is the immersive experience and strong visual impact created by the surroundings. The viewers will experience nausea or disorientation if the video has low resolution with grainy pictures. Therefore, it requires the CDN to provide high quality and stable streams, allowing experiencers to participate in the 360-degree virtual reality fully. It also requires the CDN providers to support h.265 or h.264 encoding, which help reduce the bandwidth by half while ensuring the original video quality.  Moreover, VR live streamers do not have to bear high costs as a result of the reduced bandwidth consumption. 

3. User-Generated Live Streaming

User-generated live streaming involves a vast mixed-quality content library from individual streamers. As every country has its own content regulation law, content auditing becomes standard practice. Streaming platforms often combine manual review and programmatic auditing for sensitive content. The programmatic auditing is done by computers processing images, texts, and other components of the live streams using algorithms. CDN needs to have the capability of taking screenshots of the live stream regularly and feeding it to the auditing workflow to facilitate the auditing process without creating additional latency. If any content is flagged to be inappropriate, CDN needs to remove the content without impacting other streamers. Besides content auditing, user-generated live streaming is especially performance-sensitive as the streamers rely heavily on real-time interaction with viewers to gain viewership. It's crucial that the CDN provider has real global coverage to ensure there are no delays in the streamer/viewer interaction and to ensure viewing performance. 

4. Online Education Platform

The advancement of live streaming technologies drives the growth of the online education industry. Various online education platforms have emerged over the past few years, which enable us to take a variety of classes at home at our schedule. CDN plays a critical role in optimizing web performance and making sure the online education content can be delivered cross-border without buffering, lag, or other quality issues. Besides the streaming quality, content copyright is vital for online education platforms. CDN provides edge authentication and access control to prevent content hijacking.

5. Event-based Live Streaming

Live events nowadays are being streamed online for remote audiences and are being recorded into videos for future playbacks. Many live events are hosted and broadcasted from outdoors or from venues with poor network environment. In this scenario, the capability to ingest the raw live feed onsite and utilize mobile (4G, or soon to be 5G) network to broadcast the event with minimal latency is the critical requirement for CDN providers. As the remote audiences view the streams on a variety of devices under different network environments, transcoding the feed in real-time to different formats and bitrates is another key criterion when selecting a CDN provider. Aside from performance, CDN providers should be able to stream real-time viewer statistics to you as viewer statistic is pivotal to providing the best user experience for your viewers.

Baishan CDN has successfully supported all above-mentioned live streaming scenarios for its customers.  As a leading global cloud data service provider, Baishan operates an extensive global network capable of handling large audiences and deal with sudden bursts.  Baishan also offers real-time transcoding, fast purging, and real-time analytics to provide a seamless live streaming experience to users anywhere on any device. Find out more about BaishanCloud at www.baishancloud.com.

Coronavirus and the Media Industry: Twilight Zone

  • The global epidemic of COVID-19, commonly known as coronavirus, is changing the world and significantly affecting business activity in every industry
  • Events, advertising revenues and media technology investment in hardware may be the hardest hit sectors in broadcast and media
  • However, people will also consume more content at home and virtual technologies such as cloud and remote working may be more easily adopted by technology buyers

The global epidemic of COVID-19, commonly known as coronavirus, is changing the world in 2020. Known to have started in China, it is rapidly spreading throughout the globe due to its highly contagious nature. It is influencing people’s lives, straining healthcare systems, rattling financial markets and paralyzing business activity. Governments are moving to mitigate the impact of this dramatic black swan on the lives of their citizens as well as on their economies. The virus is taking the world by surprise, disseminating uncertainty as many of its characteristics are still unknown to scientists.

The broadcast and media industry, like any other sector, has felt the negative impact of the virus, particularly when it comes to events, advertising revenues and media technology investment. Let’s have a look at each of these effects:

Events: 

As mentioned earlier, coronavirus is an extremely contagious disease that spreads easily through physical contact. As a result of this, a string of trade shows in various geographies have been cancelled to safeguard the safety of the potential participants. Everything started with Mobile World Congress (MWC), the largest exhibition in Europe – it is held in Barcelona. After a series of participants like Facebook, Amazon, Cisco and Intel pulled out, MWC decided to cancel the show planned for the end of February. In mid-March, another large and well-known exhibition - South by Southwest (SXSW) - was cancelled after the city of Austin declared a local disaster that prevented the show from happening. MipTV, an event focused on the television industry, was also cancelled at the start of March. NAB Show was cancelled on 11 March after a series of major exhibitors pulled out of the exhibition. Other events such as Cabsat, CCBN and Prolight+Sound were rescheduled or postponed. IABM has kept track of the number of cancellations as you can see from the chart below. The impact of this virus on the events industry is unprecedented and huge as the number of cancelled exhibitions shows. As a further testament to this, Informa, the world’s largest exhibition company, has postponed or cancelled over 120 events with more than £400m revenue impact at the time of the writing. Putting aside the impact on the events industry, the media technology sector is feeling the pressure on business activity from the virus as well. Media technology is an international sector that has historically focused on high-value, C-level sales that are better conducted face-to-face. Media technology trade shows are not only an extremely valuable vehicle for closing deals but also a place for discussing future technology roadmaps with customers openly, particularly at a time when technology is changing so rapidly and unpredictably. Losing access to all of this is undeniably damaging and will prevent some deals closing as well as some important discussions taking place.

Advertising Revenues:

Advertising revenues are highly correlated with the performance of the economy. In other words, if macroeconomic performance is up, advertising investment made by brands is likely to go up too. If performance is down, it is likely to plummet as a result. As the world has become more globalized, countries’ macroeconomic performances have gradually grown more connected. This has made the world better and more prosperous; but has also increased its volatility and inherent risks. The better response to risk and volatility is diversification, which is why several commercial broadcasters such as ITV have tried to diversify their revenues away from advertising and towards other funding sources such as subscriptions and content licensing. However, advertising still accounts for a large share of the media industry’s revenue. The impact of coronavirus on countries’ macroeconomic performance is and will be real and extremely damaging. The virus is affecting economies in multiple ways. To put it briefly and simply, the virus affects both demand – people staying at home and consuming only necessities – and supply – through the lack of demand as well as through increased uncertainty. In the media industry, this is leading to a sharp decrease in advertising spending. In March, ITV warned investors that advertising spending would drop by 10% in April as a result of decreased spending by advertisers, specifically mentioning that the travel industry was postponing several ad campaigns that had been scheduled. Not to mention the postponed or cancelled sporting events, which drive the largest advertising investment due to their capacity to reach engaged audiences at scale. Expect this trend in advertising revenues to continue as the world grapples with the virus.

[infogram id=”f9430d0d-5280-469c-bde1-212550a3c786″ prefix=”SR6″ format=”interactive” title=”Coronavirus impact on Broadcast & Media”]

Media Technology Investment:

The two trends mentioned above along with the general climate of uncertainty and disruption will very likely negatively affect investment in media technology. Events not happening may prevent some deals from taking place as discussed earlier. Broadcasters exposed to declining advertising revenues will experience greater financial pressure, which would result in lower budgets for media technology investment as well. Moreover, the cancellation of sports events is set to greatly impair the revenues of broadcasters that deliver them to viewers. These broadcasters have spent huge sums of money on rights and technology infrastructure to enable these events – most of this investment may be already a sunk cost. This is not a good time for disruption as many media technology suppliers are in the middle of a transition to as-a-service models – see our Adapt for Change report for more info on this – which is significantly affecting their cash flows. However, from another, more positive perspective, this could be the best time for this external shock to happen as the industry is more dependent on software revenues than it has ever been before according to IABM data. In fact, the impact of the virus on demand will arguably be greater for hardware manufacturers who are seeing their supply chains being disrupted by the virus and highly rely on trade shows to drive sales. Suppliers in the middle of the transition to as-a-service models may push their next-generation software products more aggressively to compensate for the decline in legacy offerings.

These are issues that the industry needs to face in the upcoming months, as the virus continues to spread worldwide. However, this is a dynamic and resilient industry that has the strength to adapt to these changing dynamics. Below, we have included some of the positives of this crisis for the broadcast and media industry: 

Temporary Move to Virtual: 

People will not stop meeting other people for conducting business. The face-to-face element of interactions, particularly in an industry like media technology where high-value technology discussions are essential, will remain key. However, the whole industry needs to temporarily adapt to this moment of disruption and go virtual. Fortunately, there are a lot of conferencing tools like Zoom to conduct virtual business meetings in an effective way. People will use them if they are forced to do so by the virus. As an example, Microsoft has seen a 500% increase in Microsoft Teams meetings in China after the outbreak. Of course, it will be easier to conduct demos for software providers. For those that have the possibility to do so, it could be worth experimenting with SaaS selling models like free-trials as well – again, see our Adapt for Change report for more info on this. We do not see virtual as a substitute for trade shows but rather as a powerful complement to them. More reliance on virtual should help suppliers have more continuous relationships with their customers as well. A more proactive digital presence by suppliers through tools like webinars and customer surveys should at least partly compensate for the lost time at events. As mentioned earlier, the industry is more reliant on software than it has ever been, which makes this a good time for making a temporary move to virtual.

[infogram id=”51bf8bcd-5484-4615-bd21-814891defb42″ prefix=”1sV” format=”interactive” title=”Media technology revenues”]

Greater Demand for Entertainment:

Earlier, we have talked about how advertising revenues will likely be hit by the macroeconomic crisis created by the virus. This does not really apply to subscriptions. Subscriptions are a more stable and predictable revenue source which comes directly from consumers. Yes, consumers will be hit by the decline in business activity but expect governments to intervene to mitigate the socio-economic fallout of this situation. Italy provides a good example of this. The Italian government has launched an initiative of “digital solidarity” to incentivize cultural, educational and entertainment businesses to provide their services free of charge during this critical period. Companies like Amazon have adhered to this initiative. Also, expect consumers to drastically shift their consumption preferences during this period and view digital entertainment products more as necessities as they increasingly spend more time at home. This does not apply to all types of subscriptions but mostly on those that rely on scripted content – as noted earlier, sports may be strongly hit by the cancellation of events. If we look at the revenue sources of media technology suppliers, subscriptions are also more likely not to be hit by the more uncertain economic environment compared to large license fees and deals.

Virtual Media Technology Trends:

Coming back to media technology investment, although uncertainty will impair spending as in most other sectors, some broadcast and media organizations may be forced to take a more digital approach to cope with the increased risk of physical contact. We have often highlighted how media technology buyers have been inclined to take a “wait-and-see” approach when investing in new technologies such as cloud and IP. In some sectors, there has been some aversion to the risk of investing in new technologies due to their potential impact on current operations. Risk preferences may shift radically as a result of this external shock. Technologies such as cloud are key to successful direct-to-consumer models and enable workflows to be conducted remotely. As direct-to-consumer benefits from the greater demand for entertainment and physical contacts are minimized worldwide, more investment could go into virtualizing operations. This transition is not going to happen overnight as it is a complex one. However, the current crisis may push some technology buyers to accelerate their move to safeguard their employees and effectively continue their businesses.

The coronavirus crisis is going to change business in 2020. The broadcast and media industry will be affected by the shock created by this but could take some actions to adapt to it. There is no way to be sure of the real effects of this crisis but in a time of such uncertainty it is worth looking at the glass half full and understand how we can all make the most out of the current situation.

The IABM Business Intelligence team would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone good health – and a speedy recovery if you are unfortunate enough to be affected by the coronavirus.

IABM Coronavirus Statement banner

FileCatalyst Webinar – Introducting Workflow 5.1

The FileCatalyst team has been hard at work bringing new updates and features to FileCatalyst Workflow. Co-Founder & President, John Tkaczewski, hosted a webinar on January 9th to share what’s new with this version.

What’s New

Some of the new features include:

  •  Added: “Request Files Here” feature, allows File Area users to Request files from outside users to upload into a chosen folder in a FileArea
  • Added: Ability to set multiple languages, each language is loaded dynamically based on the “Accept-Language” request header Administrators can create any number of language files based on POSIX Locales
  • Added: Text contained in forms and fields can now be loaded as a custom language property, to better support the new multi-language feature

Who

This is a great resource highlighting the latest FileCatalyst Service. this is a great learning resource if you are:

  • An existing FileCatalyst user
  • A newcomer who wants to learn more about our solutions