There are three shortlisted projects nominated for the most innovative use of technology in content creation.

Second screen app for The Walking Dead

End User: FX UK
Technical Partners: FX UK, Red Bee Media, Civolution

It is now commonplace for consumers to be using other media – such as a laptop, smartphone or tablet – while watching television. For the content creator and the broadcaster, the challenge is to keep the viewer immersed in the programme, and the best way to do that is with second screen content that adds to the interest of the television programme.

Broadcaster FX UK recognised that fans of its cult post-apocalyptic horror series The Walking Dead were very active online, so commissioned a second screen app to accompany the programme from Red Bee Media. To accommodate the many viewers who watched the programme time-shifted, Red Bee used an innovative technique to keep synchronisation between the content and the app: audio watermarking, provided by Civolution.

Realtime Grand Slam analysis and graphics

End User: ESPN
Technical Partners: Orad, Spidercam, Hawk-Eye

Modern tennis is so fast-paced that audiences may struggle to appreciate the strategy of each player’s movements for attack and defence. In fact, until now it has been a challenge for broadcasters to analyse what is happening and present it to viewers clearly and immediately.

ESPN wanted to tackle this challenge with a system which would generate huge amounts of data on what players were doing, then render it into clear and interesting graphic sequences to tell the story to the audience as the match progresses. It turned to Orad for the technology, with support from EVS, Hawkeye and Spidercam. As well as keeping audiences tuned it, it also creates new revenue opportunities by allowing branding on the virtual courts.

VATE: director support for live television

End User: TV Globo
Technical Partners: TV Globo Production Center - RJ, TV Globo Engineering Division - SP

There are three sorts of multi-camera television productions: dramas and comedies, where the camera movements can be carefully plotted, and sports where anything can happen are two of them. The third is currently very popular with audiences: shows like ‘Dancing with the Stars’, where the action is planned and rehearsed, but might go wrong on live transmission, calling for a cool head from the director and camera operators.

For the Brazilian version ‘Dança dos Famosos’, TV Globo wanted to help by allowing the director to storyboard out each dance during rehearsals, with suggested shots captured in a special server along with the timecode. During the live show, the system – called Vate – puts the next shot on the monitor wall two seconds before it is taken, reminding the director of where to go next provided the dancers are moving the way they should. If the celebrities make a mistake the director can call the cameras as necessary, ready to move back to the plotted sequence as soon as the dance is back on track.

There are three shortlisted projects nominated for the most innovative use of technology in content management.

Sports ingest, management, multi-screen distribution

End User: Turner Studios
Technical Partners: Dalet, EVS, Stainless Code, Active Storage, Inc., NetApp, Quantum, Azzurro Systems Integration, CineSys, Telecom Network Solutions, Enterprise Applications

Its new centralised feeds recording, logging, highlight editing and playout system was launched on Christmas Day 2011, at the end of just 15 months of specification and development. Turner brought together best of breed technology partners from around the world, including Dalet Digital Media, EVS, Stainless Code, Active Storage, Quantum and NetApp. Despite the huge throughput of the system – it is currently configured for 26 ingest and 16 playout channels – any content is available for logging, editing and viewing within 10 seconds.

Streamlined workflows for cutting edge news

End User: Sky News Arabia
Technical Partners: TSL, ScheduALL, Miranda Technologies, EVS, Broadcast Bionics

The chance to specify and build a completely new centre for news production and delivery is rare. Sky News Arabia is a new venture, going on air in May 2012 from what was almost a greenfield site, a converted television studio in Abu Dhabi. The broadcaster’s intention was to create an Arabic language, world class channel using the latest technology, embracing social media and user-generated content as well as professional newsgathering from local crews and bureaux around the world.

Systems integrator TSL was awarded the contract, and as well as integrating equipment from ScheduAll, Miranda Technologies, EVS, Broadcast Bionics and others, it developed a lot of customised interfaces to achieve new and streamlined workflows, for instance allowing a single entry in the booking system to automate the scheduling and quality control of input and output circuits. As well as a completely file-based production process and a live studio based on camera robotics, the project also included some of the largest monitor walls ever constructed, a real combination of traditional and new media skills.

Video capture and replay for high speed sport

End User: NASCAR
Technical Partners:  Telestream, Cinesys, Quantum

NASCAR is not just a thrilling motor sport, it is the number one spectator sport in the USA, and is also broadcast to 150 countries. To capture the 43 cars hurtling around the track at speeds up to 200 mph, there are 18 HD cameras trackside, plus cameras onboard some of the cars. Alongside the broadcast feeds, NASCAR uses these cameras for race control and to review incidents and maintain order under a yellow flag.

It first built a replay system for officials eight years ago, but the SD video and low bitrate MPEG-1 replay meant that it was sometimes difficult to tell which car was at fault and at what point damage was caused. So it now has a new system in sparkling HD, based around the Telestream Pipeline HD hardware encoder for picture quality and custom multi-clip replay application. Other technology partners include Promise Technology and Quantum for the SAN.

There are four shortlisted projects nominated for the most innovative use of technology in content delivery.

Home Media Center

End User: DIRECTV
Technical Partners: Broadcom, Entropic Communications, JetHead Development, Pace and Samsung

DIRECTV, the leading North American satellite broadcaster, wanted to offer a comprehensive service to the home through a single gateway box, which becomes the central point for co-ordinating a local server and delivery through multiple client devices of all DIRECTV and online content, linear satellite channels and broadband VoD.

Thanks to open standards, including UPnP, DLNA and RVU, the DIRECTV Home Media Center can not only connect to but deliver a consistent user interface experience for any compliant client, including connected televisions. Multiple receivers can have the full DIRECTV UI, including access to DVR content, with no set-top box. Direct technology partners include Broadcom, Entropic Communications, Jethead Development, Pace and Samsung, but a key part of the success of the project is the RVU Alliance which includes a large number of electronics manufacturers.

4OD on Xbox

End User: Channel 4
Technical Partners: KIT digital, Microsoft, RedBee Media, Metabroadcast

Channel 4 in the UK actively seeks to make its 4oD online catch-up service as widely available as possible, and working with Kit digital it launched on the Microsoft XBox 360 platform in time for Christmas 2012. In just 10 days more than 635,000 users downloaded the app, and paid advertising on the new platform sold out within two days.

The app uses all the functionality of the XBox and its companion Kinect controller, so audiences can use a conventional remote control or a game controller, or use speech recognition or gestures to move around menus and select content. The adaptive Kinect device allows multiple users to talk to it simultaneously. Gold subscribers to the XBox online community can find Channel 4 content through the built-in Bing search engine, which will lead to an automatic, and virtually instant, downloading of the player app.

Live realtime content replacement

End User: ITV
Technical Partners: Yospace Technologies, Snell

An essential part of any broadcaster’s online presence is a live stream of the broadcast channels, so audiences can watch wherever they are. But within that live stream, the broadcaster will want to replace some content: there may be programmes that it does not have online rights for, and it may want to tailor its advertising for online platforms.

While the traditional content replacement offerings involve freezes and waits for media to be buffered, ITV in the UK has just completed a trial which replaces content completely seamlessly, using technology from Yospace which itself interfaces with the Snell playout automation for scheduling information. The technology allows the replacement content to be tailored down to any level – even personalised to the individual – while the user experience is so seamless that the consumer is unaware that what appeared to be a copy of the broadcast linear channel is actually created individually for them.

Remote production over IP

End User: CBS Sports Network
Technical Partner: VidyoCast

When CBS Sports Network wanted a television talk show, converting the popular Tim Brando radio show seemed like a perfect fit. The only problem was that CBS Sports is based in New York City and Brando’s radio studio is in Shreveport Louisiana, more than 2000km away. Building and crewing a television studio in Shreveport was not financially viable, and sending multiple camera feeds over dedicated lines back to New York was also too expensive for the project.

The solution lay in the VidyoCast platform, originally developed for high quality video conferencing but in fact delivering reliable HD using H.264 scalable video coding, over the public internet and non-QoS networks. The four studio cameras are on robotic heads with all parameters controlled from New York, where the programme is switched in the main CBS Sports studio. “For the production team it is as if the studio is located in the next room,” according to Walter Raps, CBS Sports Network CTO.