Tackling the challenges of providing Sports Live over the Internet

Jim DeFilippis explains the challenges of
streaming the Olympics

Live events are one of the big money makers for the entertainment industry, and none are bigger than sports broadcasts. They come with many unique challenges for digital broadcasters, but each year new records are set for how many streaming users can tune-in to a game or match. ETIA's Getting Sporty panel shared their expertise in digital sports broadcasting, along with some of their future challenges.

Ken Kerschbaumer of Sports Video Group moderated and kicked off the panel, starting with industry veteran Jim DeFilippis, currently with TMS Consulting, who talked about the challenges of streamcasting the Sochi Olympics. He began by showing the mobile application designed to allow users to pick and choose between live and recorded events as well as highlights. Client broadcasters could also provide their own clips for their customers. The application was cross-platform, with versions for Flash, iOS, Windows Mobile and Android. It ultimately supported 370,000 hours of viewing.

Sports insider David Aufhauser of Pac-12 Networks -- a wholly-owned Pac-12 company created to provide the Universities sporting events to broadcast and streaming viewers. Perhaps unique among similar content creators, the Pac-12 creates all content ready for both broadcast and digital across its National network and six Regional networks -- including 2400 hours of live events last year alone. Their current challenges include dealing with events that don't wind up fitting neatly in their pre-defined slot in the electronic program guide.

Joe Novello of Crossfit Games started his remarks by explaining that unlike most entertainment provided online Crossfit aims to cross-over to real life by providing a new physical workout every day that each of its viewers (I guess we should call them participants) carries out. While the framework of the workout is the same, individuals scale the workout to their capabilities. The logical result is the gamification of the system and the creation of the Crossfit Games. They have grown to over 200,000 participants this year.

Clark Pierce of Fox Sports rounded out the panel by explaining that at Fox there is no tension between broadcast and streaming, as they are committed to providing their content to the user with the best quality on the best screen for their viewing needs -- so Fox's on the go solution is designed to provide the same excellent experience that a subscriber would get on their TV at home when they are using a mobile device. He stressed that live TV is, in his opinion, what is holding the streaming solutions like Netflix and Hulu at bay.

-- David Cardinal for ETIA 2014, SMPTE & SCIEN

Piracy and Entertainment business models

Industry veterans discuss the best way
to monetize content over digital media

Allan McLennan led a panel discussing how data and technology can provide compelling business models for content owners and consumers alike that can span the variety of new -- non-managed -- devices where most viewing growth is taking place.

Tony Emerson -- who leads the media industry portion of Microsoft's anti-piracy efforts -- explained the challenges of keeping malware off computers and devices when some arrive with it already installed from the factory. Microsoft's cybercrime center is responsible for all type of malware and other cybercrimes, but of course the topic of most interest to the ETIA audience was content piracy. Emerson explained how the visualization tools used for tracing and tracking computer viruses could also be used for locating pirated content and piracy tools.

Gartner's Van Baker explained that newer viewers have shorter attention spans, want to multitask, and have less tolerance to barriers that are placed in the way of their consuming content. Meeting those needs while maintaining a business model that protects the content owner is a large challenge for the industry going forward.

Allan suggested a standard for viewer data might be helpful, but Decentrix's Taras Bugir pushed back, saying that each of the large companies it works with have different data and different needs. So he doesn't see a standard as being likely -- except for figuring out how to monetize "the viewing eyeballs." He pointed out that simply charging for premium content over digital is only one type of income stream -- leaving out the needs of advertisers -- who spend most of their money on traditional media but want to learn how to measure and use digital media to expand their reach.

Vubuquity's Darcy Antonellis made the practical point that scaling is a crucial issue for getting content provided on demand over digital infrastructure. Without a more automated and efficient process it is hard to generate profit. She also stressed that if content providers could get information about when users are ready to buy they could optimize their deliver networks and the experience of their users. Bugir said the difficulty starts with the simple issue of who in the content delivery chain owns the customer data -- since you can't analyze customer data if you don't have access to it.

SMPTE's own Pat Griffis helped wrap up the session with an offer for SMPTE to help with the portion of the business model work that would benefit from standardization. The panel agreed that there would be benefit in building a standard for measuring from the impression up so all media could be evaluated by content providers and advertisers.

-- David Cardinal, ETIA 2014, SMPTE & SCIEN

Getting traditional content ready for the web

Martin Wahl explains how the Olympics were webcast

Everyone agrees that web-based streaming is the fastest growing segment of the digital entertainment market, but that doesn't help those with libraries of traditionally-created content to be able to take advantage of it without some effort and tools. Jan Skoglund, of Google's Chrome team moderated a panel on some of the tools available to effectively provide traditional entertainment over the web.

Renganathan Ramamoorthy, also from Google, led off by discussing the background of Google's VP9 codec, that has been instrumental in providing content streams beyond HD over the internet. VP9 was designed to be a web-native codec, as a better-performing alternative to re-using codecs that were originally developed for other media. The growth of video to over half of all web traffic -- and especially the rapid growth in mobile video -- made it critical for large content players like Google to figure out a way to deliver high-quality content with less bandwidth.

Google knew that whatever codec it developed would need to be usable across a variety of devices and bandwidths -- thus adaptable. To make that happen it needed to be available to everyone. Its development would need to keep pace with the rapid pace of web development. The result -- VP9 -- provides equivalent quality to H.264 while using significantly less bandwidth.

Microsoft's Martin Wahl -- the panel's only non-Googler -- provided a user perspective by discussing how the 2014 Winter Olympics were cloud cast using Microsoft technology. He began with the challenges -- mostly the highly-complex technologies needed and the large capital outlay required. But with Live events being the most compelling broadcast entertainment, the motivation to deliver them as streams over the cloud is compelling.

Wahl showed another reason streaming can be value-added to broadcasters. Over the years that Microsoft has worked with NBC to add viewing options for the Olympics, the total amount of time watched per viewer has increased -- even the amount of TV viewing increased, before adding in the additional viewing time on PCs, tablets, and smartphones. To help media capture that additional revenue, Microsoft created Azure Media Services as a complete cloud-based solution for content owners and broadcasters to stream and then monetize their content.

Anil Kokaram and Doug Stallard from Google's YouTube rounded out the panel with a discussion of how better video really does make a difference to its users and how VP9 is helping them deliver it while using less bandwidth.

-- David Cardinal, for SMPTE & SCIEN

Video's "Perfect Storm" helps thePlatform evolve, Blaine looks forward to new challenges

Fireside Chat on Quality over the Internet:

Colin Dixon interviews Ian Blaine at ETIA 2014

When thePlatform CEO Ian Blaine started the company in 2000, video broadcasting was either tied to cable systems, or required a massive expenditure of $10 per Gigabyte for streaming solutions. He explained to moderator Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia how it was a perfect storm of high-quality-video-capable devices like the iPad and game consoles, along with widespread availability of high-speed broadband, and a willingness of content providers to put premium content out over the internet that helped launch the massive increase in popularity for video streaming.

Blaine sees one of the biggest future challenges is to extend quality video streaming to live events -- which will require not just quality, but immediacy and the ability to deal with large viewing spikes. In terms of technology, he is hopeful that MPEG-Dash will eventually be very helpful in reducing the complexity of the streaming environment today. He is optimistic about 4K for niche markets like sports, but uncertain how important it will be in influencing consumer buying decisions.

While Blaine wouldn't predict whether streaming would eventually become the only solution for distributing content, he was more interested in progress in the user experience -- something he called "time to watching something good." Key to providing that is better targeting, in his mind. Dixon tied that to the impatience and "me-centered" younger generation, but Blaine insisted that it was just common sense not to want to waste time.

ETIA 2014 is Underway!

Bernd Girod kicks off ETIA 2014

We're underway here on the gorgeous Stanford Campus, for ETIA 2014. This year's event is appropriately hosted in the Huang Engineering building, with the main events occurring in the Nvidia Auditorium. Co-chairs Joyce Farrell and Pat Griffis were joined by Stanford Senior Associate Dean Bernd Girod in welcoming us to this 2nd annual ETIA.

Professor Girod helped set the context with some of Stanford's history in media -- starting with the work of Muybridge and of course continuing through broadcast media and the internet. New this year is the "Holodeck" exhibit this evening of immersive virtual and augmented reality technologies.

I'll be live blogging the event as it goes on, and of course we'll have a full report in Motion Imaging later this summer. You can even download an app with the program and speaker bios for your mobile device from the Apple or Google app stores (search for SMPTE ETIA 2014).

-- David Cardinal for SMPTE, SCIEN & ETIA 2014

The 2014 NAB Show’s Technology Summit on Cinema, produced in partnership with SMPTE Opens with Standing Room Only

Setting the stage for lively discussions, music of The Beatles pumped through room S222. Then, SMPTE Education Vice President, Pat Griffis took the floor to welcome the crowd. Griffis was impressed with the full house, “for a Saturday morning in Vegas” and introduced SMPTE President Wendy Aylsworth.

Aylsworth’s first remark was, “I love the Beatles.” She then explained some background on SMPTE remarking on the Society’s Oscar and 6 Emmy awards. Aylsworth remarked that SMPTE has more than 6,000 individual members and 230 corporate sustaining members. She explained that SMPTE will be celebrating its Centennial in 2016 and the Society embarking on a fundraising effort to support its three pillars: Membership, Standards, and Education. A surprising announcement was that SMPTE and the Hollywood Post Alliance (HPA) have established a closer relationship.

SMPTE Executive Director, Barbara Lange, said that SMPTE is a “vibrant organization,” with a growing membership base, particularly internationally. Lange discussed SMPTE’s expanded educational offerings, including new webcasts for SMPTE Executive Members and a series focused on Emerging Technologies. These are in addition to the Society’s firmly established series for Educational and Standards Update Webcasts. Lange announced that 3 SMPTE Technology Committee Study Groups just have released reports that are now available on the SMPTE website:

·       Report of the Study Group on Immersive Audio Systems: Cinema B-Chain and Distribution

·       Beyond the Digital Conversion: The Integration of Information Technology and Professional Media

·       Report of the UHDTV Ecosystem Study Group

All the reports are available for free on the SMPTE website:

https://www.smpte.org/standards/reports

In addition, Lange introduced the new SMPTE mobile app available for iOS, Android, and web based operating systems and invited all delegates to stop by the SMPTE Booth L30 in the South Hall.

Griffis once again took the stage with the Chinese proverb, “may you live in interesting times.” Remarking that these are interesting times indeed for the cinema industry referring to the convergence of media. He discussed the upcoming Entertainment Technology in the Internet Age Conference (ETIA 2014) at Stanford University in June and announced the the Early Bird Rate has been extended through the NAB Show: http://www.etia2014.org. In addition, Griffis announced The SMPTE Forum 2015, in collaboration FKG, which will take place in Berlin, Germany 7-8 May 2015.

Technology Summit on Cinema Program Chair, Dave Schnuelle, was next up. He thanked the entire program committee, staff, as well as NAB. He highlighted the sessions for the weekend, noting, “We love all our sessions equally.”

- Aimée Ricca 

SMPTE 2013: Canon Previews Sophia Loren In 'The Human Voice'

During Thursday’s session on cinematography, Canon Senior Fellow Larry Thorpe previewed some clips from The Human Voice, a 30-minute short lensed with the Canon C500 in 2K 12-bit, using Cooke S4/i Primes and Canon Zooms.

Photographed by Oscar nominated cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto ASC, AMC the film stars Sophia Loren and was directed by the actress’ son, Edoardo Ponti.

It was was filmed last summer in Rome and Naples.

The footage was screened during Thorpe's presentation on lens considerations for digital cinematography.

Also Thursday afternoon, NHK’s Hiroshi Shimamoto reported that the company had developed a 120 fps 8K 12-bit CMOS image sensor, and recent built an 8K compact camera that uses this sensor.

Tonight, the conference will wrap with the Honors and Awards ceremony, hosted by David Wood, followed by the second annual SMPTE Jam.

I've look at screens and clouds from both sides now....

The ‘Demo room’ was a great achievement for SMPTE 2013, and we may look back on it in twenty years’ time in the same way we now look back on the 1892 demos at the SMPTE conference of digital TV and analogue HDTV.   So, what was on show?

One thing was an appraisal of what you actually get for your money on a UHD-1 TV with native UHD-1 compared to the same content at 1080p up-scaled.   There was a difference, but it was not huge.  

Another thing was the impact of using HEVC compression on image quality.   Estimates of at least a two to one saving compared to AVC seem to be well founded. 

Images of UHD-1 images with frame rates of 50 and 60 Hz were on show, and delegates could see the kind of quality that the new HDMI 2.0 will ‘let through’ to the display. 

There were also demonstrations of live UHD-1 content.

For the morning of the last day of the Conference, I also attended the stream of session on ‘clouds’.    At previous SMPTE conferences there has been an air of reluctance by the studios to use ‘clouds’ to store their most precious content, because they do not want even the remotest risk of harming them.   This year, at least apparently, confidence in, and use of, clouds has grown.  The use of ‘hybrid systems’ where you use your own storage when you have some left, and turn to a cloud when you don’t, was a popular theme, and may represent the shape of things to come.   Such things can be done automatically.  Clouds may be a competitive market, so one of the skills broadcasters may need is to ‘shop around’ for the cloud space.    

Deploying Video Platforms in the Cloud

Thursday’s program began with a session on deploying video platforms in the cloud, with speakers sharing their experiences and insights.

The messages included:

--Bhavik Vyes of Amazon Web Services detailed ways to build flexible and scalable media workflows in the cloud, using Amazon Web Services as a platform.

This came with a reminder that the increasing size of date files will place stress on the workflow. “It’s getting harder,” he admitted, “especially with the arrival of 4K.”

--“Go cloud first; but not cloud everything,” urged Andrew Sinclair, New Corp. Sinclair Media Technology.

He related that News Corp. has a “cloud first” policy. “We are looking for a SaaS platform,” he said, noting that it gives them flexibility since they don’t have to completely commit to it. “Beyond that we look for PaaS (Platform as a Service), down to Iaas (Infrastrucuture as a Service),  and then physical infrastructure.”

--Robert Jenkins, CEO of Cloudsigma, discussed the notion of the “hybrid cloud," suggesting that companies would generally leverage their existing investment and combine it with a public cloud. “It's a project-based industry so pretty much every production tends to be unique,” he said. “We have to accept that this isn’t a cookie cutting approach.”

He warned: “a lot of public cloud pricing is broken. … If you buy it for too long it’s too expensive. With the right price, the public cloud can be competitive.”

SMPTE Conference: Studying Acceptance of HFR 3D

Wolfgang Ruppel, professor at the Rheinmain University of Applied Sciences in Germany, presented the results of a study that the University conducted about the subjective acceptance of HFRs for stereoscopic 3D.

This was achieved using James Cameron and Lightstorm Entertainment’s “medieval feast” themed test footage comparing 24, 48 and 60 fps; and Circus, an animated short produced at RheinMain University, also rendered in 24, 48, and 60fps.

Ruppel reported that overall results found a preference for HFRs amongst the participants. More specifically, the findings suggest that the difference between 48 fps/eye and 60 fps/eye varied by the speed of motion. And 60fps/eye can make the most noticeable difference for mid to fast motion scenes.

A second test examined down-conversion from 48 fps/eye and 60 fps/eye to 24 fps/eye, compared with footage natively shot with 24 fps/eye.

The conclusion: downconversion appears to work well.

Have you seen these comparisons? What do you think?

SMPTE 2013 - A historic event for UHDTV

Such was the attraction of the special UHDTV exhibition, and the main exhibition area, that attendance in the main sessions today was more modest today than yesterday.   Though there was still interesting technology to hear about.  

They included the developments in the ATSC on a system for providing emergency warnings to users of the ATSC’s mobile system.  If there a hurricane coming, your mobile TV can switch itself on, and give you all the details.  It seems though that take up by the industry has so far been modest.   That’s the problem with things you only need very occasionally, but when you need them, you really need them.

There was also a presentation about technology to allow a broadcaster to increase the number of channels carried in a multiplex, which could silently and secretly be used for carrying content to a consumer or a daughter broadcaster.   The idea is that you discretely reduce the bit rate of the normal channels for a while,  and slip in the extra channel or content.  No new equipment is needed.  Could it be that the technical quality we broadcast could be raised or lowered depending on the audience size - like adaptive internet streaming in reverse?

For the UHDTV exhibition itself, there were many UHDTV monitors, comparisons of quality after compression, and more.  Maybe the SMPTE 2013 will go down in history as the day the story of UHDTV finally broke?    

SMPTE Exhibition Hall Is Now Open

The SMPTE conference's exhibition hall opened on Tuesday and was also the setting for the evening's opening reception.

Numerous stands have technology that underscores the themes of Monday’s symposium on next generation image formats.

Among them was a Cisco display presented during the reception, showing imagery using its 4K HEVC compression in 6 Mbps (1000:1 compression of the original file) in 4:2:0 color depth.

A sampling of the exhibitions:

At the Daystrom stand, Fusion-io is showing playback of 4K uncompressed imagery at 120fps on a Sony 84-inch 4K display, from an HP Z820 workstation equipped with four of its ioFX cards with 1.6 TB capacity.

Fusion-io’s director of visual computer Vincent Brisebois noted, “you can’t get that with SSD and RAID.”

The Fusion-io cards can be purchased standalone or bundled with certain models of HP’s workstations including the Z820.

NVIDIA is exhibiting a beta version of Red’s RedcineX Pro, which now has GPU acceleration from the Nvidia Quadro K6000. At the stand, it is being used for 5K playback in real time.

Also on the floor, Snell is showing its flagship broadcast automation system Morpheus and Momentum, a workflow-automated media asset management and resource-planning tool.

Dolby meanwhile is demonstrating the new model of its Professional Reference Monitor, the lighter and slimmer PRM-4220;  and its glasses-free Dolby 3D system.

The exhibition hall will be open through Thursday.

Networked production – not quite utopia?

A lot of focus on Day 2 was the transition IT based / Networked Media sessions.

The trend (of course) for production centers is to networks, where everyone in the production centre is interconnected.   But is this quite the utopia it sounds?  There will, we learned, still be headaches for the engineers who have to plan and install them.

The phrase "of the shelf" products for Networked Media needs qualifications. You cannot achieve the performance we need by combining different systems and switch supports. When considering the data transfer capacity of the studio links, you need to factor in the issues of buffering and synchronisation.  Also compression systems are not ‘reversible’, so expect generation issues.  In other words there may be no such thing as ‘off the shelf IT equipment’ for us.   

For those, like your blogger, who still love 3DTV, there was a small exhibit with an autostereoscopic display at the exhibition.  Oh, how the mighty have fallen?  The demonstrator told me that six views are created from two original views and displayed on adjacent strips on the display.  The result is reasonable if not perfect.  The stereoscopic phenomena where, when you move your head, the objects in the scene appear to shift laterally, is still there outside a modest viewing position.   But, hey, we should be thankful for small steps forward?        

Multi-View Production: New Ways To Capture Depth

Tuesday afternoon's SMPTE conference session on multi-view production included a preview of two developing camera systems that introduce new ways of capturing depth on set. Both were recently tested in the field.

Session chair Howard Lukk, Disney’s vp production technology, described the first as a “hybrid 3D” approach as it combines elements of both native 3D production and conversion. It's a prototype trifocal camera system that is effectively a rig holding one main camera (Alexa) and two small satellite cameras. This allows the filmmakers to photograph the imagery on set while at the same time generate depth information that can be used to create a stereo version in postproduction. This camera system was developed by Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute with Walt Disney Studios and ARRI.

The second, a “motion scene camera,” was introduced by ARRI’s principal engineer Dr. Johannes Steurer. This is a motion picture camera with a time-of-flight sensor for generating the depth information.

The day ended with the annual opening night reception in the exhibit hall.