In Broadcast - April 2013 - 54

I N T E R N A T I O N A L

WWW.INBROADCAST.COM | ISSUE 18 - APRIL 2013

N E W S

InMEDIA

Extending Screen Content Channels
Broadcast television and radio channels, and even the distribution channels, are being radically rethought
and reimagined to ﬁt the changing landscape of 21st century media and entertainment expectations…

By Kevin Hilton
Contributing Editor

T

54

he rampant adoption of new
technologies is bringing about
redefinitions of previously wellestablished words and terms.
The more measured view is that
there are far more ways for viewers
– content consumers – to receive the
ever-growing mass of information
ﬂowing over the air or through wires
of many different kinds. In the middle
is well-established linear television,
coming into homes through digital
terrestrial signals, cable or satellite.
This familiar companion in the
corner of the room – moving more
centre stage to the wall as a ﬂat
screen – has changed considerably
in the last 20 years. There are many
more channels on offer, but more
signiﬁcant are the plus-one services
and interactivity with data options.
Time-shifting – recording
programmes to watch later – has
been with us since the days of
VHS but the features of today’s
advanced receiver-recorders like
Sky+, Freeview+ and TiVo have
given viewers even more powerful,
foolproof ways to catch favourite
programmes. Machines can be
programmed to record entire
series and even adapt to schedule
changes but probably the most
useful new aid to modern viewing
life is pausing live TV.
Alongside this are video streaming
and catch-up services such as BBC
iPlayer, ITV Player and 4oD. At ﬁrst
this took viewing away from the
TV in the front room on to desktop
and laptop computers but streaming
boxes like Apple TV and Roku give
the opportunity to bring it back into
the main living area.
Despite that the demise of the big
screen telly and communal viewing
is being predicted, supported
by recent surveys
showing drops in sales
of LCD/LED screens.
The market is poised
to see what happens

with 3D and 4K ultra-high deﬁnition,
but there is no disputing the way
tablets – iPad, Samsung Tab2 and
a whole range of others including
smartphones, are becoming the way
to watch TV and other streamed
material, like films.
Not just the preserve of a younger
demographic, older, gadget savvy
types are also using tablets to watch
TV on the move. A good example
of the changing attitudes towards
watching television is the 14-year
old son of Philip Nelson, Senior Vice
President of Strategic Development
for portable production systems
manufacturer NewTek. “He doesn’t
see a TV set or a mobile device, he
just sees a screen because he wants
to watch television,” Nelson says.
“For the older generation the TV was
the Holy Grail but now it’s all about
convenience and very often my son
goes to the iPad before the TV set.”
The wide choice of how to watch
television content, combined with
a growing number of ways of
distributing programmes – terrestrial
TV, cable, the web – has, Nelson
adds, changed the vocabulary of
the business. “All this material, from
public broadcasters to people on
YouTube, is being delivered and they
are all broadcasting it but what is a
broadcaster these days?” he asks.
Nelson argues that more powerful
but lower cost technology has
drastically reduced the cost of
broadcasting and so allows people
to in effect create their own channels,
as well as providing material for more
traditional outlets.
NewTek specialises in compact
portable production systems for
live broadcast but Nelson says a
new breed of user is pushing the
company’s products, particularly the

TriCaster 855 – one of the latest iterations of NewTek’s family of Tricaster is
capable of streaming live programmes

The drive towards screen-enabling apps is
relentless – the recently launched UKTV iOS App

TriCaster
“TV studio
in a box,” in
new directions.
TriCaster has been used on live
broadcasts including the MTV
Awards and is also ﬁnding favour
with schools and colleges in the US
looking for a way to cover their sports
events. “Fans want more access
to their teams and more content
and we’ve been able to supply an
option to people who don’t have the
money for conventional broadcast
facilities,” Nelson says.
An example is the Horizon League,
a college athletic conference of nine
Midwestern universities best known
for its men’s basketball. Nelson says
that by using TriCaster the League
has been able to increase the
number of live games it broadcasts
a year from between eight and ten
to 400. TriCaster is also being used
by the NBA (National Basketball
Association), which streams
coverage on its website as well as
providing feeds for local TV stations.
Nelson says users now have a
range of outlets, from national and
local broadcasters to the internet,
with web pages and branded
YouTube channels. He adds that
by having IP connectivity through
a variety of interface boxes
the TriCaster can be part
of a more direct delivery
chain, shortening the path
between production and
distribution to a variety
of platforms.
The channel-in-a-box
approach is increasingly
being taken inside broadcast
centres and play-out
facilities for automation and
general management of channels.
Miranda Technologies is aiming its

iTX IT-based automatic transmission
system at an increasingly diverse
broadcast market, where different
services have varying requirements
according to the platform on
which they appear.
“A number of broadcasters
are using integrated systems to
run channels,” says Scott Rose,
Product Manager for iTX at Miranda
Technologies. “The importance of
technology is being recognised
now because whoever is running
the channel – a public broadcaster
or shareholders – realises systems
have to be more efficient.”
Rose was previously head
of product for media and fibre
platforms at play-out and uplink
specialist Arqiva, so he has seen
the changing needs of broadcast
delivery from both sides. He says
the cost efficiencies clients are
looking for are not just due to a
general desire to save money but
because the viewing audience is
now “more fragmented” because of
the choice of platforms and devices
available to it.
“Play-out is now more client
driven,” Rose comments. “There is
the move to over-the-top platforms
[services distributed over IP but
without the direct involvement of an
internet service provider] but at the
moment we have to keep baseband
transmissions on the multiplex as
well. Customers are also asking for
playout and master control facilities
to be simpler. That’s not so they can
have fewer staff but assign people
to more speciﬁc jobs in dealing with
other platforms, such as video on
demand. If all the media is available
then it can be selected by different
teams at the same time and worked
CONTINUED ON PAGE 55
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