Late last month, TVU Networks announced Partyline, a communications tool designed specifically to make life a bit easier for production crews grappling with the challenges of show production during COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.

Think of a mashed up intercom and IFB system together with HD video of all Partyline participants, such as producers, talent and guests, and you get an idea of what Partyline can do.

Leveraging the cloud and the company’s Real-Time Interactive Layer (RTIL), part of TVU’s Inverse Stat-Mux technology, to transport virtual intercom/IFB-related audio and video bits, Partyline enables common communications among all participants as well as directed communications to specific individuals regardless of their location.

Supporting a variety of professional features, including mix-minus audio, undetectable video and audio delay and synced AV signals, Partyline is available to users of TVU Producer, TVU Anywhere and TVU One.

Late last week, Paul Shen, founder and CEO of TVU Networks, took out a few minutes to talk about the origin of Partyline, what makes it different from consumer solutions like Zoom meetings and the future of remote production. 

(An edited transcript.)

TVTechnology: Was Partyline in the works prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, or did you suddenly see your customers needing this communications capability? In other words, what came first, the virus or the Partyline?

Paul Shen: The virus. 

TVT: So you hustled to get Partyline out.

PS: Yes. This organization’s [TVU Networks] entire development philosophy is based on what we call “Dev Ops.”

Our products are usually released on databases. What that means is internally we are not thinking of a product, we are thinking of microservices.

So when this [COVID-19] surfaces, we said: “OK, people are removed from working with each other. They no longer have the real-time interactivity among them and also with their equipment. That’s missing throughout the whole remote working process.”

So, there were two components that must be addressed. One is quality and the other is interactivity—and how we can put them together. We said, “Let’s create a real-time interactive way to do that.”

TVT: At the very beginning of the lockdowns and work-from-home mandates, broadcasters began using tools like Zoom and Slack. But Partyline is purpose-built for broadcasters and the production community. Given the short development cycle for Partyline is it fair to say your engineers drew on TVU’s experience with customers rather than lengthy research to guide them through the process?

PS: Precisely. In fact, this project was quite amazing. Partyline is available across TVU Anywhere, TVU Producer as well as our physical transceiver, our TVU One. It spreads across the entire portfolio. It’s another microservice that spreads across all of them.

One of the very important differences between Partyline and consumer products, such as Zoom, is mix-minus. This is a huge issue that Zoom cannot deal with.

Another big part of the problem is people being interviewed, they don’t just want to watch the host, they want to watch the program.

The same is true of the whole production crew. They want to be a part of it, but they want to talk to the right people—they don’t want to just broadcast to everyone.

Video conferencing really cannot handle these issues.

TVT: The Real-Time Interactive Layer (RTIL) that’s part of the TVU Inverse Stat-Mux technology serves to transport the audio and video of participants in a Partyline session. Does this in any way degrade contribution video quality?

PS: No. In fact, that is a very important part of what we’ve done. That is to make sure that there is a very clear priority separation between the bits transported via RTIL and the bits used to contribute video for the broadcast side. Broadcast bits are given the highest priority.

TVT: Even though the work-from-home orders are in place, many broadcasters are relying on skeleton crews on premise to carry on operations. This makes me wonder if there is the ability to integrate Partyline with existing professional intercom systems so production personnel on site can have this communication link with those working remotely.

PS: It integrates with existing intercom systems. It has an intercom interface. So, the intercom user can talk directly into it. That’s something that people inside of our industry think about, but it’s not really something that people from the computer industry would think about.

TVT: When COVID-19 finally passes, do you think production will return to normal, or do you think it will have a lasting effect and there will be a continuation of these remote workflows?

PS: As the producer of this product, we always said that remote production is where the future is. The main reason is the cost difference is so significant.

The whole coronavirus outbreak accelerated remote production because people are forced into this situation. But once people experience this, I don’t think they will return [to conventional ways].

The whole economy has caught a cold right now. In the next two quarters, we will see the effects. So during this period, people want to save costs. Moving forward, people will want to make production much more efficient so they can create much more product at a much lower cost.

The industry is moving in that direction. Young viewers want to watch much more content than the mainstream media can deliver because the production costs of the mainstream media are way too high. But with this, the production costs can be significantly less.

More information is available on the TVU Networks website.

TV TECHNOLOGY: What do you anticipate will be the most significant technology trend at the 2017 NAB Show?

PAUL SHEN: Driving efficiency has been and will continue to be what many broadcasters will be demanding this year. There will be many products and services focused on delivering efficiency. For those of us who specialize in IP-based workflow solutions, we’re sure this NAB Show will show a lot of groundbreaking technology on multiple fronts for broadcasters. We expect to see a lot of discussion around the operational efficiency achieved from the transition to IP infrastructure from SDI, and the impact that has on all aspects of a broadcaster’s workflow. We also expect to see trends towards software-defined workflows. We are going to demonstrate a number of solutions at our booth this year that address IP-based and software based workflows for video.

TVT: What will be your most important product news?

SHEN: Our family of products and services were built to help broadcasters create more with less. To that end, we’ll be focused on demonstrating how new additions and enhancements to our hardware and software ecosystem for IP video delivers operational efficiency to a broadcaster’s workflow. For example, we’re showing our new TVU One mobile cellular transmitter with HEVC. It’s really the best of two worlds: more efficient video performance and better stability at 0.5 seconds latency even in a moving vehicle while also using less bandwidth. We can do this because TVU One combines H.265 video compression and TVU’s patented Inverse Statmux Plus transmission algorithm to deliver live video performance that can rival satellite and microwave.

We will also be demonstrating a new API integration with a well-known third-party broadcast equipment provider. This new TVU Alert integration is designed to efficiently automate and streamline a common but manually intensive workflow. The operational efficiency realized by this integration will allow news crews to bring non-live stories captured from the field to the studio by accelerating the transfer and ingest of metadata linked content to the newsroom.

Going beyond traditional broadcast production, we will be demonstrating how the TVU ecosystem now allows broadcasters to manage digital media production within their existing workflow. Using TVU Producer, a broadcaster does not have to treat the producing and managing of live streams to Facebook Live for instance as separate from existing, well-established broadcast workflows. TVU Producer is designed for the digital media producer for easy control of video live streams.

TVT: How is your new product different from what’s available on the market?

SHEN: In the case of TVU One with HEVC, one distinct difference is our Inverse StatMux Plus (IS+) advanced IP video technology. In order to combat the bandwidth and QoS hurdles inherent in wireless 3G/4G networks, TVU Networks developed a proprietary technology called Inverse StatMux (statistical multiplexing). StatMux is a process where multiple signals are combined and transmitted over a fixed channel. As its name suggests, Inverse StatMux does the opposite, taking a single signal source and then reverse multiplexing the signal across multiple channels for transmission. The transmission is then re-aggregated at the receiving end. With Inverse StatMux, our mobile transmitters can mitigate the effects of constrained bandwidth by transmitting the video signal over multiple channels simultaneously and when you combine that with HEVC, broadcasters can more efficiently transmit data with less bandwidth but with greater performance and transmission stability.

TVT: What is it about the NAB Show that brings you back every year?

SHEN: It’s a tremendous show. We’re able to meet with so many of our current and prospective customers from all over the world in one place. And we get to participate in discussions about the important topics that are directly impacting broadcast and media industries. We look forward to it every year for all of those reasons, plus socially, we get to spend time with our industry colleagues.

This NAB Show marks the company’s first in the Central Hall. TVU is moving from its traditional location in the South Upper Hall of the LVCC to the Central Hall. This hall will become TVU’s home at the LVCC for future NAB Shows.