LAUSANNE, Switzerland, and BERKELEY, Calif.—European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR) has chosen Eluvio to power its EPCR TV global streaming subscription service and deliver enhanced fan experiences, the company said today.

The next-gen streaming video platform will deliver current EPCR matches live and past matches via video-on-demand to fans around the world. The new streaming channel will feature the Investec Champions Cup and EPCR Challenge Cup in key global markets, Eluvio said. The 2024-25 EPCR season kicks off on the weekend of Dec. 6.

Available via web browser, mobile devices and Apple TV, Android TV, and Amazon Fire TV with the Eluvio App available for download on their respective stores, EPCR TV enables fans to watch multiple live matches at once, catch up on live matches in progress and rapidly search through live, upcoming and past games. Powered by Eluvio technology, EPCR TV content will be streamed in full HD with dynamic, automatic adaptation of resolution to the user’s available bandwidth and delivered with low latency. Fans will be able to choose from multiple audio tracks—with or without commentary—for a custom experience, it said.

“We are delighted to be partnering with Eluvio to bring best-in-class experiences for EPCR TV audiences. This represents a significant step forward in working with next-generation technology to deliver high performance streaming and expand the global reach of international club rugby’s best competitions,” EPCR CEO Jacques Raynaud said.

“This major improvement to fans’ viewing experience represents a major part of the innovations we are introducing ahead of our 30th season, to bring incredible entertainment, every try and nail-biting moment of the Investec Champions Cup and EPCR Challenge Cup to more fans than ever before.”

Eluvio also is providing EPCR with state-of-the-art content security and end-to-end antipiracy protection based on the company’s strong encryption, DRM (digital rights management), authorization, proof of authenticity, forensic watermarking and rights control for a tamper-proof streaming experience, it said.

"We’re honored that EPCR selected Eluvio to bring the new EPCR TV to life,” Eluvio CEO and founder Michelle Munson said. “This is a first-of-a-kind experience for Rugby fans to enjoy high-quality streaming, with access to the best live and archival video content EPCR has to offer. EPCR and fans can engage directly through the platform for maximum enjoyment while benefiting from the most efficient and cutting-edge technology.”

EPCR TV subscribers have several payment options, including a season pass for 49.99 euros ($53.24), which includes access to the live matches. Fans also can choose to buy a weekend pass for 14.99 euros ($15.96), which includes access to the live matches of the round, or purchase single matches for 7.99 euros ($8.51) each. Some archival content will be available for on-demand rewatch during the season, it said.

More information on the technology is available on the Eluvio website.

Subscription information is available from EPCR TV.

LAS VEGAS—At the 2024 NAB Show in Las Vegas, April 14-17, Eluvio, a provider of  next-generation content distribution and storage technology, will unveil a new release of the Eluvio Content Fabric to deliver premium live streaming, PVOD, FAST channels, and video archive monetization at scale for content owners, broadcasters, film studios, and media/entertainment companies.  The company will also debut new apps to extract the full potential of the Fabric with content management, automatic streaming properties, analytics, and AI understanding. 

Eluvio is hosting exclusive keynotes, demonstrations, and more at NAB with registration information at https://eluv.io/community.

The Eluvio Content Fabric Protocol is a next-generation content distribution and storage technology that provides fast, efficient, tamper-proof streaming, download and monetization of any digital media content at scale. It solves the biggest distribution problems facing media companies by dramatically reducing investments in media clouds and CDNs and by opening new engagement and revenue opportunities via its innovation, the company said. The software protocol runs decentralized over TCP/IP on an open global network of nodes—no third-party CDN or media cloud is needed.

At NAB, the company will introduce a new generation of the Eluvio Content Fabric core (aka the “Casablanca” software release) and will debut new Creator Studio, Content Analytics and AI Content Understanding apps built on the Content Fabric.

The Casablanca release version extends the Content Fabric with provable mass scale performance and deterministic low-latency live & VoD adaptive bitrate streaming (<1 second segment delivery times for 99% of clients and segments); expands the end-to-end per-session content security with additional DRM formats and forensic watermarking for live video; adds automatic and instant Live-to-VOD (DVR) with no file copies; provides automatic configuration for MPEG-TS/SRT/RTMP live stream sources; and adds many advanced features for premium, broadcast-grade audio/video streaming. The new features cross live, VoD, and interactive streaming; provide frame-accurate content composition; enable scalable server-side personalization; and allow in-stream HTML-5 graphic enrichment. 

Eluvio’s Universal AI Content Tagging and Search service now includes significant enhancements, such as generative AI tagging of video and images in-Fabric, in addition to six other tagging models, and fast semantic Fabric Search. Tags are recorded in the metadata of Content Objects (in place), and automatically searchable and actionable. Unlike other AI content tagging workflows, no content or metadata must move since the AI metadata is directly and dynamically addressable, across recorded live streams or deep video archives. All content and metadata are directly usable in the Fabric’s dynamic streaming pipeline to create clips, insert content/ads, create highlights, etc. and without having to move media or tags—avoiding expensive ingress/egress and added complexity.

Building on the Content Fabric’s existing tamper-proof, owner-controlled content model, the latest release also includes a new content verification and proof API. This allows users to verify the version hash of any content object or offering, guaranteeing the authenticity and provenance of any streaming output. A new C2PA Claims Manager app publishes and verifies claims in content objects and supports licensing and authorization for AI. 

The next-generation Content Fabric Application Suite has practical and breakout features for building on the Fabric.  The new Creator Studio app allows publishers and brands to easily manage, distribute, authorize, and sell media in the Content Fabric to consumers or business partners for streaming, download, and/or discovery. The app combines simple, fast management of Fabric-hosted content; easy creation of branded media property sites via automatic web UIs with rich and modern UX; and built-in media selling including subscription, per event/pay per view, and enterprise access control options, according to Eluvio. Properties for live sports streaming, premium VoD movies and TV, and video archive services can be stood up quickly and configured with ease.

With the new Content Analytics & Reporting app, Content Fabric users can review comprehensive viewing metrics/statistics for streaming and delivery quality of service (QoS). The analytics data is collected throughout the Fabric continuously, and aggregated within the app via graphs, tables, and other visualizations to provide comprehensive and easy viewing of real-time and past history for all content served. Users can monitor, in real time, the number of viewers and Fabric performance per streaming event or title and run fine-grained multi-dimensional filter queries for metrics on past streaming and viewing sessions such as views by title, client geography, device, browser, and OS. Users can also track the health of streaming by title or event, including viewing in real time the Fabric metrics for streaming segment delivery times (i.e. average, 99th percentile, max, min), and the breakdown of views by adaptive bitrate segment resolution.

With the AI Clip Search v2, Content Fabric users can search across content libraries to retrieve relevant clips based on in-Fabric new generative AI/ML tagging, speech-to-text transcription, and content metadata. The latest Fabric Search service provides fast re-crawl and includes enhanced text-based and new semantic search capabilities powered by vectorized deep learning. Clips are built dynamically for just-in-time in playout. This pipeline avoids the time and cost of manually identifying, cutting and storing clips or highlights. The latest release includes shareable links for copy-paste streaming or download of the clip, and side panels for viewing the relevant tags and semantic descriptions of each content and is fully embeddable via its APIs.

AI tags are viewable in the Video Editor, which provides frame-accurate timeline viewing/scrubbing for any playable content in the Fabric and its metadata, in the browser. The Editor is a lightweight clip generator, supporting the ability to save key frames, and mark-in/mark-out selection, and dynamic generation and download of subsections or clips.

Finally, Eluvio will introduce new versions of Media Wallet and Embeddable Player. The Media Wallet adds a new deep link API for embedding in browser and TV-based retailer properties, new features for embedding e-books, documents, and multi-mode interactive experiences, and new platform versions including releases for Microsoft Xbox in addition to Apple tvOS, Android/Google TV, and Amazon Fire TV. The browser-based version includes a new generation UX that is fully integrated with the Creator Studio media and property management features. The Embeddable Player has a new expanded UI with built-in indicators for live, on-screen titles, metadata, playlists and configurable multi-view switching, and includes an ultra-low latency profile providing 3-4 second, end-to-end streaming latencies with standard HLS. 

“Our new applications are built to extract the full potential of the Content Fabric,” said Michelle Munson, CEO and Co-founder of Eluvio. “The Content Fabric addresses the three major problems of legacy video delivery: complexity, cost, and the innovation trap. The traditional tech stack has so much complexity because the media, metadata, processing, and delivery are all part of siloed workflows, and achieving fast or scalable streaming performance often requires brute force. This structure leads to unnecessary higher costs, inefficiencies, and resource demands. And finally, it creates a lock-in of the tech stack that prevents media re-use and personalization—the kind of innovation media companies need right now—especially in the age of AI. The Content Fabric replaces legacy distribution with its ‘content-native’ approach. Streaming speed, workflow simplicity, and cost-efficiency are inherent. Media is data driven and owner controlled, without having to work at it so hard, or pay so much. This simply changes the game. And now, we are bringing the apps that make it possible to use this powerful technology at scale.”

The Casablanca features and Application Suite roll out in production from now through Summer 2024. Eluvio’s co-founders will demonstrate the Casablanca Content Fabric release and applications on Sunday, April 14 and Monday, April 15 from 1:00 p.m.- 2:00 p.m. in W237, and Eluvio will host meetings and demonstrations throughout the NAB show.

Attendees are invited to see the Content Fabric cost savings for scale use cases including Streaming OTT (100 million hours per month); Live Sports Streaming and Recording (1000 live events, with 15K-500K concurrent viewers, receiving low-latency, high quality secure streaming); FAST Channel OTT (340 million hours including origination and streaming playout, ad insertion, DRM/security, and personalization); Film and TV Library Servicing (200,000 titles from films);  Archive Monetization (250,000 hours of news and sports for online tagging, search, clip/image generation, and monetization); and Whole Media Business (OTT streaming of 100 live matches, subscription and per event sell through, and 10,000 hours of archive monetization with ingest/storage/addition of existing data tags).

Eluvio will also host various tech talks and events throughout NAB and showcase its newest initiatives with innovators such as Attention Seekers, Magnifi, NAGRA, Telstra Broadcast Services, and others. On Saturday, April 13, Eluvio President and co-founder, Serban Simu, will speak at the CDSA Content Protection Summit in LVCC West Hall 108/109 at 4:15-4:35pm. On Sunday, April 14, from 8:00-9:30 a.m., Ms. Munson will speak on the IABM Industry Breakfast Briefing Panel in Ballrooms D&E of the Westgate Hotel. From 11:30 a.m. -12:00 p.m. on Sunday, Ms. Munson will also speak at the Main Stage Theater in the Capitalize Zone of the West Hall on “Content Fabric - Your Next Generation Distribution for Premium Live Streaming, PVOD, FAST Channels, and Video Archive Monetization at Scale.” On Monday, April 15 at 12:15-12:45 p.m. in West Hall #W3943, Ms. Munson will speak on the panel: “Leveraging the Power of Generative AI to Deliver Personalized Content at Scale.” On Tuesday, April 16 from 12:00-1:00 p.m., she will speak at the Women Connect Leadership Summit luncheon executive panel produced by GALSNGEAR and Sports Video Group on “The Future of Story: Tech Trends & Audience Engagement” at NAB West Hall, W208-209.

Eluvio will be in W237LMR in the West Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center. 

BURBANK, Calif.—Amid growing studio interest in Web3 experiences, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has announced that it is working with content blockchain provider Eluvio to release the Superman Web3 Movie Experience on June 9. 

The release of Superman Web3 Movie Experience follows the 2022 first-of-its-kind Web3 entertainment offering The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Extended Edition) Web3 Movie Experience.

The Superman Web3 Movie Experience is available for preview at https://web3.wb.com and opening for purchase on June 9. 

The studio explained that the Superman Web3 Movie Experience is a multimedia NFT that allows fans to own and to engage with the 1978 Richard Donner film starring Christopher Reeves. Through dynamic menu options based on iconic locations from the film, owners can watch the film in 4K UHD on desktop, mobile, tablet or TV, access special features, view image galleries and artist renderings by notable DC artists, discover digital easter eggs, as well as sell the experience in a community marketplace. 

Warner Bros. is offering the Superman Web3 Movie Experience in standard and premium editions:

• Standard edition ($30 for 1 week from 8:00AM ET on June 9 to 7:59AM ET on June 16) includes an interactive location-based navigation menu, Superman: The Movie Theatrical Version, previously released special features and an image gallery featuring stills and behind the scenes galleries.
• Premium edition ($100 for 24 hours from 8:00AM ET on June 9 to 7:59AM ET on June 10) includes 3 different variations available for purchase separately, Truth, Justice, and Hope, each featuring an illustration of Christopher Reeves’ Superman from one of three DC artists - Ivan Reiss, Ben Oliver, or Bill Sienkiewicz. Each variation includes an interactive and explorable location-based navigation menu and 3 versions of the feature film – Superman: The Movie Theatrical Version; Superman: The Movie Expanded Director’s Cut; and Superman: The Movie Extended TV Edition - along with previously-released special features, and image galleries featuring costume and detail images from the Warner Bros. Archive and stills and behind the scenes galleries.

The Superman Web3 Movie Experience will include a free voucher code for a DC3 Super Power Pack: Series Superman from the DC NFT Marketplace, offering 3 randomly selected Superman comics with rarities from Common to Legendary. These packs are time-gated, open edition drops, limited to one per account. There will be new themed packs launching every few weeks, the studio said.  

NEW YORK and BERKELEY, Calif.—Fox Corporation has announced that it has invested in the Series A round of funding for Eluvio and has said Eluvio will provide the underlying technology platform for Blockchain Creative Labs, Fox Entertainment’s and Bento Box Entertainment’s recently launched NFT business and creative unit. 

As part of the investment, Paul Cheesbrough, chief technology officer and president of digital for Fox Corporation, will also join Eluvio’s Board of Directors. 

Terms of the investment were not disclosed but Fox Corporation’s investment marks the completion of Eluvio’s Series A round at a valuation of $100 million.

The investment comes at a time when a number of studios and content creators are exploring the use of blockchain technologies for distributing and monetizing content. 

Launched in 2019, Eluvio is led by Emmy Award-winning technologists, Michelle Munson and Serban Simu. It’s customer’s include Fox, MGM Studios, Sony Pictures, and others. 

The company offers Eluvio Content Fabric, an open protocol blockchain network built for owner-controlled storage, distribution, and monetization of digital content at scale. It provides live and file-based content publishing, transcoding, packaging, sequencing, dynamic and static distribution, and minting of derivative NFTs–all backed by blockchain contracts providing proof of ownership and access control. 

It also offers Eluvio LIVE. Powered by the Eluvio Content Fabric, Eluvio Live is a multi-tenant turnkey platform for publishers that provides 4K streaming and ticketing of events with media marketplaces. 

As part of the investment, Fox said it hopes to accelerate the adoption of Eluvio’s technologies.  

“At Fox, we believe that the blockchain, and the overall shift towards a more decentralized web, is providing creators with a wealth of opportunities to reach consumers with exciting new experiences,” said Cheesbrough. “Michelle, Serban and the Eluvio team are the best in the business when it comes to the software and scalable infrastructure required to power live, decentralized experiences across the blockchain and our investment will help bring this technology to a wider market of content creators, media partners and advertising clients.”

“We believe there is great opportunity in tokenized media on the blockchain, which represents a new era in how technology and entertainment will drive one another forward,” said Scott Greenberg, CEO of Blockchain Creative Labs and co-founder and CEO of Bento Box Entertainment.  “The Eluvio team members are pioneers in the digital arena, and this strategic investment in Eluvio brings Fox and Blockchain Creative Labs an indispensable partner with whom we will build this business as we together chart the future for the NFT market.”

In May, Fox Entertainment and Bento Box entered the NFT business with the formation of Blockchain Creative Labs and a $100 million creator fund to identify growth opportunities in the space.  

Blockchain Creative Labs plans to launch a dedicated digital marketplace for Emmy-winning creator Dan Harmon’s upcoming animated comedy, "KRAPOPOLIS," marking the first animated series to be curated entirely on the blockchain. The company will manage and sell digital "KRAPOPOLIS" goods, including NFTs of one-of-a-kind character and background art and GIFs, as well as tokens that provide exclusive social experiences to engage and reward super fans.  "KRAPOPOLIS" is fully owned and financed by Fox Entertainment and will be produced by Bento Box. 

BURBANK, Calif.—The Hollywood Professional Association (HPA) Awards Committee announced EIZO, Eluvio, Moxion and Carl Zeiss SBE are the winners of the 2020 HPA Awards for Engineering Excellence.  

The HPA Engineering Excellence Award honors outstanding technical and creative ingenuity in media, content production, finishing, distribution and archive.

EIZO is being recognized for its Prominence CG3146 31.1-inch HDR monitor with built-in calibration sensor. New technologies were invented to include advanced brightness and color uniformity correction that allows calibration to occur at the top of the monitor and a stable XYZ glass type sensor that resists temperature. 

New algorithms were needed for one sensor in both low brightness areas with higher noise and high bright areas with more light saturation. Machine learning display stabilization and custom ASIC technologies were implemented to improve image stability and increase the available colors of the LCD panel by more than 22%.

Eluvio is being honored for its pioneering work on a novel video distribution platform to service content providers around the globe. The Eluvio Content Fabric provides an efficient, secure and cost-effective means to deliver ultra-low latency video globally just-in-time without CDNs, cloud transcoding or databases. 

As a single backend for distribution, the platform links media, metadata and programmable code and serves high quality streaming video to the viewer without intermediaries, separate file copies or static versions. Content is personalized dynamically and rights-controlled via software blockchain contracts. 

Moxion is being recognized for its Immediates, the result of multiple innovations enabling post and production to share and review each other’s footage securely within minutes of creation.

Immediates footage, complete with camera, action and VFX wranglers’ metadata, flows from the QTAKE video assist into the Moxion cloud, where it can be reviewed and logged before flowing into editorial or VFX workflows. Conversely, footage created in post can be sent via the Moxion Cloud back to the set, security, the video assist for playback on on-set monitors or to any on-set iOS device.

Carl Zeiss SBE is being honored for its eXtended Data lens metadata technology that amplifies and increases the accuracy of the image capture and processing workflow. Zeiss eXtended Data unifies two data sets: key lens data based on the Cooke and i-Technology and the ZEISS distortion and shading lens data.

After recording on set together with the video files, the data can be applied in post-production for more accurate compositing and editing by using the suite of Zeiss-developed lens plugins.

Frame.io and Sohonet received honorable mention for their Camera-to-Cloud and ClearView Flex technologies, respectively.

This year’s judging was adapted to adhere to restrictions imposed on the industry by the COVID-19 pandemic, HPA said.

Now in their 15th year, the HPA Awards, including the HPA Award for Engineering Excellence, will be bestowed Nov. 19 during a virtual gala.

More information is available on the HPA website. 

BERKLEY, Calif.—A Berkeley, California-based startup says it has a new way to distribute streaming video that eliminates the need for traditional video encoding and content delivery networks (CDNs).

Eluvio was founded by Michelle Munson, a Cambridge-trained software engineer and IBM veteran. The company’s patent-pending “Content Fabric” architecture is a global software overlay network that enables just-in-time video distribution—stream or download file—directly from the source.

The system, Eluvio says, eliminates the need to create additional copies of files used in distribution networks or storage facilities using a novel representation of media and data protocol implemented in a blockchain network to create a direct-to-consumer media distribution network.

MGM is using the Eluvio Content Fabric for global streaming to web, mobile and TV Everywhere audiences of certain properties, including transcoding, multiformat encryption and DRM, access control and audience reporting.

“The economics of today’s video ecosystem is defined and hampered by yesterday’s technologies, and we aim to change that,” said Munson, who serves as CEO and co-founder of Eluvio. “The Eluvio Content Fabric enables content owners to manage and distribute video and large form content in ways never before possible, opening publishers to more direct monetization opportunities, and reducing costs by minimizing core bandwidth and storage, and radically streamlining the traditional media distribution workflow.”

Munson is introducing Eluvio alongside her co-founder, Serban Simu, at IBC in Amsterdam. In 2003, Munson and Simu also founded Aspera, which invented the FASP fast file transport protocol. Aspera was acquired by IBM in 2017. 

LAS VEGAS—PBS has announced that it is working with Eluvio, a developer of software for managing and distributing large form content and GrayMeta, a provider of AI/ML technology, on a proof of concept for a dedicated blockchain environment that could allow PBS member stations to optimize their collective connective resources and utilize machine learning, metadata and microservices to create more efficient workflows and services. PBS made the announcement at the 2019 TechCon in Las Vegas.

“We’re working to create a blockchain fabric that stations would be able to opt into and utilize it in a dedicated environment within the PBS member station community in order to efficiently use various services,” said Renard Jenkins, vice president PBS Operations, Engineering & Distribution, adding that such services could include transcoding, datamining and excess resource sharing, for example.

Jenkins said PBS has been working with Eluvio and GrayMeta on the proof of concept for the last six months and that Eluvio CEO Michelle Munson presented various ideas and possible use cases during her keynote at PBS TechCon.

“We showed station representatives what we are working to architect and present to them for their input so we can move forward together,” he said.

At the conference, PBS officials updated attendees on its efforts to develop a new media supply chain that uses advances in cloud, networking and datamining to help them better manage the creation and distribution of content to multiple platforms. Jenkins and his team have spent three years planning and developing new workflows that will take advantage of the cloud as well as the move towards virtualization, and microservices enabled by SaaS (software as a service).

PBS’s relationship with its member stations is different than the relationship between a network and its affiliates or a commercial station group and its member stations. While a commercial station group may adopt a common platform from a single vendor for all of its stations, PBS’s stations are more like a federated structure, with each station its own entity with its own solutions.

“Even though we have different systems and different problems that we’re trying to solve, we are all essentially in the same boat in regard to what we have to do,” Jenkins said. “But what we do, we’re all marching along the same road together.”

Jenkins and his team examined every element along the content creation process from acquisition, editing, QC and transcoding to delivery and broke it into three phases:

Media Gateway, a cloud-based single point of entry for all media that also allows for other processes such as transcoding and compliance within the cloud. Media Bus, which is the “orchestrator” that controls and manipulates the movement of content; and Media Distribution, which would cover linear playout, OTT, B2B and B2C delivery out of a single plant.

PBS reviewed 339 proposals for the media gateway and media distribution segments and will announce the final vendors at the NAB Show, according to Jenkins. “We’re still in the design phase for media orchestration,” which he said will probably be announced in the fall. Jenkins expects to launch the gateway “within the next two to three months.”

MODERN DAY MEDIA COMPANY

Duane Smith and his staff at Oregon Public Broadcasting have also been working on new digital workflows for the past three years. Their goal, according to Smith, who is the vice president of technology for OPB, was to transform their network from a broadcast-centric facility to a facility that addresses the new multichannel, multiplatform world of today.

The planning was “part of a larger strategy about, how do we organize ourselves to be a modern day media company and not just a broadcast company, because a lot of our limitations derived from the fact that our entire infrastructure grew up around the broadcast world, and while that’s really good for over the air, none of those systems play in today’s media consumption landscape,” Smith said.

Smith’s task is to unite OPB’s nine production units around a standardized workflow flexible enough to handle the increasing myriad of tasks in the content creation process.

“The heart of our system is the media asset management system,” Smith said. “All the content is going to be registered there, all of the editing, all of the metadata is going to be added as required. And for all of those distribution points, we figured out how to abstract them down to a ‘checkbox.’”

The goal, according to Smith, is to create a workflow agile enough so that when new content creation methods are added, they don’t have a negative impact. “We didn’t want to have to disrupt our internal workflows to get content to a new platform,” he said.

The project consists of five “milestones,” according to Smith. “We’re about a month away from the end of milestone one, which is all the integration; the asset management system is being integrated with our CMS, our television automation and radio automation,” he said. “I think there’s 17 integrations we’re dealing with right now.

“Every aspect of content creation in our organization is going to be completely different,” Smith added. “There’s not one person or one process that is not being adjusted and standardized in a way that streamlines the process because a lot of our workflows and processes are left over from the days of analog.”

[Read: PBS Adopts Spec To Streamline HD Delivery]

Smith expects their new system will go live in phases starting in August and hopefully wrapped up by the end of September.

PREPARING FOR NEXT GEN TV

At Arizona PBS, CTO Ian MacSpadden has been working with the Pearl TV Group in the Phoenix Model Market project to test ATSC 3.0. As a member of PBS’s ATSC 3.0 engineering advisory committee, he and other engineering directors and CTOs from PBS are learning how to best educate broadcasters on the potential benefits of the Next Gen TV format as well as recommend best practices on how to implement it.

The promise of 4K/UHD over the air via ATSC 3.0 is one of the most attractive benefits of the standard. MacSpadden and his staff at the Phoenix-based PBS station were among the first stations in the area to shoot in 4K for their local programming. This gave the Pearl TV Group a valuable trove of high res content.

“We were one of the first stations in the market shooting and mastering, experimenting in 4K production, mastering in 1080p with HDR,” MacSpadden said. “So the Pearl Group was very interested because all of the rest of their participants were news stations and none of them are shooting in 4K.”

Handling such data-intense files though presents its own set of challenges, according to MacSpadden.

“What we’ve learned is that even though we’re shooting and mastering in 4K sometimes just getting that content to a station for air can be a challenge,” he said. “Our editors were trying to figure out how to do an HDR downmix and save it off into a file from their edit platform in a manner that the folks at the Pearl TV stations could read. We eventually found a commonality in that they were using the AJA KiPro Ultra 4K record and playback device.

“We’re still trying to work on tweaking a file to do a direct export and this will be a challenge for whatever platform stations use,” MacSpadden continued. “These are all things we are learning along the way as we figure out how to create ATSC 3.0 content through the entire production chain.”

Developing new content for devices beyond the living room TV set has prompted MacSpadden and his staff to more carefully plan ahead before production.

“This year, we’re actually trying to say, ‘OK, we’re also targeting the digital end when looking at the components of when we go out to shoot these shows; how do we put together digital sidecar content that will be these minute and a half to four minute exlusives that will be available on the web, to subscribers, or other distribution chains we decide to have available,’” he said.

MacSpadden compared learning a new content creation workflow to a new exercise routine.

“You have to get the muscle memory in place,” he said. “I need to make sure I’m covering all my bases and exercise all the muscles that I need.”