The term “live production over IP” covers a lot of territory, but the basic idea is that IP circuits are used for at least some of the signals in the production. In some studios that are built for IP production from the ground up, IP circuits are the primary pathways, and the gear directly connects to these IP circuits.

Just about any type of production can work with IP technologies. Examples of productions that use IP techniques range from the highest-level sports and events, down to local news and talk shows. Although more traditional SDI systems are still practical and in wide use, IP-based systems are here to stay.

One huge benefit from IP techniques is the ability to get remote feeds very quickly and at low cost. What used to take an expensive satellite feed can now be set up in seconds inexpensively from anywhere in the world using an IP feed.

“On my way home from [a major sporting event in] Australia, I could not help marveling at how much has changed over the last decade,” said Karlheinz Amberg, director of global events for Lawo. “Each event has become a milestone, as cutting-edge technology is deployed at the request of host broadcasters. ST2110 IP and remote production have become the de-facto standards for today’s international broadcast centers.”

Smaller Footprint
One of the benefits of increased use of IP technology for large-scale broadcasts is that the gear has a smaller footprint.

“One might argue that thorough planning allows operators to prepare enough hardware for global events, yet last-minute requests and changes of plans are difficult to address in this way,” Amberg said. “Besides, who wants to justify the carbon footprint of shipping additional devices to where they are needed in a matter of hours? 

At this year’s global events, Lawo’s HOME Apps took center stage, according to Amberg.

“For one recent event, it was decided to run them on 10 Dell servers (10U in total),” he said. “We used them for 60x HOME UDX apps to downconvert 3G ST2110, 1080p HDR streams to 3G ST2110, 1080p SDR, 1080i SDR and other flavors of broadcast video.”

Amberg said that when the entire planet is watching, the slightest glitch may trigger tirades of irate remarks by the director, the CTO, the organizing committee, and the sponsors who pay substantial amounts to be associated with a flawless experience.

“I think it’s fair to say that any match, race, hockey tournament, motorcycle event, etc., of global interest you have watched over the last 20 years has involved a considerable amount of Lawo gear,” Amberg said.

Stepping in When Satellite Can't
BBC Studios, the commercial arm of the BBC, used Matrox Video’s Monarch EDGE encoder technology, coupled with GlobalM’s SRT (Secure Reliable Transport) distribution platform, to televise the state funeral of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II across the U.K. a year ago. 

The workflow began with Monarch EDGE multichannel encoders. Most live content ready for distribution entered master control as SDI feeds, and an EDGE E4 quad-channel, 4:2:2 10-bit encoder captured and contributed four high-quality, low-latency streams—main and reserve domestic feeds, and main and reserve international feeds—to the GlobalM streaming platform.

The GlobalM orchestration network then distributed and transmitted the SRT-enabled feeds, including backup and redundant paths, to international rights-holders across the globe, while the master control monitored all streams in real time with the GlobalM web dashboard. During the 12-hour broadcast, GlobalM did not drop a single packet, providing worldwide BBC audiences access to 12 hours of high-quality, uninterrupted event coverage.

Spending associated with satellite contribution and distribution has historically been restricted to events that warrant its expense and complexity, and fewer and fewer broadcasters are equipped with the necessary satellite-receiving equipment. In the case of the queen’s funeral, rights-holders with no satellite capability still needed to access the signal in the same quality as satellite would provide.

“The BBC would not have been able to meet the demand for the content without the EDGE/GlobalM combination,” said Paul Calleja, chief technology officer and co-founder of GlobalM. “Matrox Monarch EDGE’s high-quality and low-latency encoding support on the GlobalM private IP backbone gave BBC Studios complete stability and quality for each stream, ensuring international rights holders near and far got exceptional event coverage.”

In this case, GlobalM chose SRT, and Monarch EDGE performed flawlessly with this transport mechanism, according to Calleja. In rapid response setups like the queen’s funeral, commissioning is key. Monarch EDGE proved easy to set up and deploy, so that the broadcaster could focus on capturing the event, and not struggle with network configuration.

The highly competent broadcast staff that operates at the highest levels needs to get experience and training in a challenging learning environment. One such program in the United States is at Fort Hays State University in Hays, Kan.

At FHSU, a faculty-led student crew is tasked with the official television production of all the school’s NCAA Division II sports, which go to paying customers. Therefore, there is no room for error or equipment failure.

FHSU broadcasts everything from football to volleyball, men’s and women’s soccer, and men’s and women’s basketball. The college also has a partnership with a local high school, where the high school pays FHSU to livestream scholastic athletic events that include football, volleyball, boys’ and girls’ basketball, and track.

“To capture all this sports content across the schools, we use about 10 cameras routed into a NewTek TriCaster TC1,” said Nick Schwien, director of Tiger Media Network at Fort Hays State University. “We use Vizrt/NewTek equipment for all our live productions in-house and off campus, including a TriCaster 2 Elite, a TriCaster TC1, a TriCaster Mini 4K, Viz Engine, 3Play 3P2 and 3Play 3P1, and other components by Vizrt.”

For cameras, FHSU uses a mix of Panasonic, Blackmagic Design, NewTek PTZ and JVC equipment. Much of the gear is mounted in a custom-made Bigfoot cart.

“Our TriCasters handle anything we can throw at them, and they are a great way for college students to learn about productions,” Schwien said. “We are even currently in the process of developing a sports production emphasis at FHSU, which works out well since the gear has been so easy for the students to learn.”

Ease of use and reliability are critical in a learning environment, and Schwien said that the TriCasters and associated gear have really worked out well in that regard.

“The TriCasters also help us stream to many different platforms using an easy setup process that expands our opportunity to reach audiences,” he said. “It helps us engage our loyal audiences and fan bases as well.”

Adapts Better to Last Minute Changes
JAB Holding is a behind-the-scenes corporation that invests in many well-known name brands, such as Panera Bread, Tiffany, Lacoste, Cover Girl and Burberry. With offices spread across the globe, it is time-consuming and expensive to have company-wide face-to-face meetings. For its annual gathering this year, JAB hired Gradient Experience to produce a two-day conference on video using high-quality IP links that featured LiveU encoders and decoders.

“The use of LiveU allowed our team to adapt to last-minute changes in scheduling,” said Corey Protin, head of livestream & studios for Gradient Experience. “When a guest could no longer fly to our London green-screen facility, we simply used a LiveU encoder alongside the LiveU LU4000 4K/quad HD rackmount receiver to bring him/her into the production. We were able to meet the presenters’ needs, without sacrificing our production quality.”

Products for live IP production are among the fastest growing categories in the video industry. Although broadcasters have been able for decades to do remote broadcasts via microwave, IP remote devices give users far more mobility and flexibility. 

An example is the TVU One from TVU Networks, which just debuted at IBC 2023. The TVU One is a portable 5G cellular modem that can work at resolutions up to 4K/60 fps in HDR quality. In addition to supporting 5G cellular modems, the One can also be fitted up to work with Starlink, Wi-Fi, Ethernet and satellite.

The Power of 2110
A major network-owned station on the East Coast recently upgraded its news production to a Ross Video Hyperconverged solution. This included two Ultrix-FR5 platforms featuring integrated Ultrix Acuity production switchers, connected to the station’s existing ST 2110 production network. The Ross gear has been deployed as the heart of two live production studios, which also use the company’s routing systems and multiviewers.

“As rack space was limited, Ultrix delivered a full production solution for two studios in a compact 10RU, connecting easily into the existing ST 2110 network,” said Alun Fryer, technical marketing lead for Hyperconverged Solutions at Ross Video. “The system integrated a full-size Ultrix Acuity production switcher for each studio with the flexibility to repurpose the hardware to multiple smaller Ultrix Carbonite switchers on demand for smaller production jobs.”

Fryer explained why the Ross Ultrix solution was the right for this large broadcaster.

“[Ultrix] integrates video and audio production, signal processing and routing into a compact, adaptable platform,” he said. “The software-defined features allow the customer to adapt the capabilities of the platform to the needs of the facility dynamically, giving them the production flexibility they needed.”

The tools for live IP production cover a lot of turf in the television industry, incorporating everything from familiar-looking devices like production switchers to cloud-based services that were just thought of a few years ago. The competitiveness of the live broadcast business—especially news—means that broadcasters are always going for the gear that will get them on air with news in the fastest, most flexible way possible.

This in turn spurs manufacturers to develop products and systems that give broadcasters that “faster-than-now” capability. IP systems, with their easy integration of wireless and wired devices, is the platform on which faster-than-now is built. 

Want to learn more? Attend TV Tech's free October TV Tech Talk: Advances in Live IP Production, Oct. 19. Register here. 

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Ca.—TVU Networks partnered with SpaceX’s Starlink service to enhance the reliability of France Télévisions’ coverage of Queen Elizabeth’s funeral last month.

Considering the magnitude of the event and the large crowds involved, it was anticipated that cellular networks would become overburdened, leading the TV network to certify the combination of TVU Networks’ TVU One with Starlink. The unique ability of TVU One to aggregate multiple separate signals into a single redundant stream frees its users from cellular saturation and puts an end to instability, the main cause of signal degradation in many live news situations, TVU said.

The combination of TVU Networks and Starlink technologies was tested and validated in the extreme transmission conditions in Ukraine and Corsica before being certified by the technical teams of France Télévisions.

"We must offer news production teams and reporters technological solutions to cover every major event regardless of constraints,” says Skander Ben Attia, Director of Engineering at France Télévisions. “The flexibility and ease of use of the TVU Networks solutions met these conditions 200%.”

This capability provides more reliability for broadcasters to successfully transmit their live footage to their newsrooms, particularly in cases of violent weather with impact on infrastructure, or in areas without strong communication networks, or in the case of Queen Elizebeth’s funeral, large gatherings that completely saturate the cellular networks. 

France Télévisions anticipated that media coverage combined with security associated with the funeral would rule out the use of live traditional vans and satellite trucks and that the cell service was going to be non-existent. 

Through its partner Magic Hour, TVU Networks provided transmission packs allowing the routing of signals via Starlink as well as reception servers to increase the traffic needs of the France Télévisions news control room on the day of the funeral.

Thanks to this configuration, France Télévisions was able to have continuous live broadcasts, control their production costs, and cover the event from all editorially relevant locations. The TVU One with Starlink deployed ensured the national editorial staff of France Télévisions success in its mission.

“After very conclusive trials in Ukraine and Corsica, we decided to deploy this TVU Networks/Starlink configuration on a large scale,” says Romuald Rat, News Production Director for France Télévisions. “TVU Networks/Starlink configuration has brought us to the crossroads of technology and history, creating the certainty of being able to serve our audience without fail and focus on the storytelling. It is impossible not to be very proud of what we accomplished.”

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—TVU Networks has announced that the stars of “HaHaHaHaHa,” the first traveling, reality show in China, relied on TVU One mobile transmitters to conduct interviews and deliver live broadcasts on their journey from east to west across China.

In the show, the 5HA Tour Group, which is made up of Chinese film and television stars Deng Chao, Chen He and Lu Han, go on ten journeys filled with surprises and challenges. They must earn accommodation, transportation expenses and everything they need on the road by completing tasks and games determined by the film crew.

In the tenth episode, the team arrives at Qingshan Village in Yuhang District, Hangzhou. People in the village had just finished the autumn harvest and were planning a post-festival party. The challenge for this episode was for the 5HA Tour to conduct multiple live broadcasts of the party, interviewing, filming and hosting the live report on their own – without help from the crew.

Because Qingshan Village is located in a mountainous area, there was a risk of poor and fluctuating signal coverage, making it essential that the live broadcast equipment maintain stable transmission in a weak network environment, be easy to use for non-professionals, and be rugged enough to withstand extreme weather and constant travel.

After testing several solution, the show chose TVU One mobile transmitter to ensure high-quality, stable delivery of this live broadcast, TVU reported. 

Signals from three locations in the village were transmitted back to the TVU Receiver in the producer’s temporary studio and production center from the three TVU One transmitters in the field. At the same time, using TVU One's VoIP call function, the “reporters” on location maintained an interactive connection with show hosts Chen He and Li Dan at the makeshift studio.

TVU One performed flawlessly throughout the three-hour live broadcast, delivering real-time backhaul of multiple channels between the field and the studio. The show was broadcast on the iQiyi and Tencent platforms, receiving hundreds of millions of views and enabling the audience to enjoy the antics of the 5HA Tour Group, the companies said. 

“We’re delighted that our technology was part of such an innovative, live program,” said Paul Shen, CEO, TVU Networks. “For the non-professional, 5HA reporters to deliver and produce their own live interviews and interact with show anchors through the VoIP function, the technology had to be very easy to use. Through this experience, the 5HA reporters have inadvertently become our biggest ‘spokespersons’ for TVU One - pushing it to center stage from its usual spot behind the scenes.”

“HaHaHaHaHa” (official name in English is “Let’s Work Together”) is produced by iQiyi and Tencent Video and co-produced by Zhejiang Blue Sky Media, Orange Image and Zhejiang Hexin Media. Season 2 of the 70-minute reality show ran for 22 episodes between November 20, 2021 and January 30, 2022.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—When COVID-19 prevented competitors for Cybathlon 2020 to travel to Zurich, Switzerland, TVU Networks was brought in with its remote production technology to help create a live-streaming event so that teams from all over the world could compete.

Cybathlon 2020 is a series of races in which people with disabilities use exoskeletons, brain-computer interfaces and other state-of-the-art assistance systems to complete everyday tasks. The Cybathon organizations tasked TVU with finding a way to transmit high-quality live video over the internet from multiple locations to create a virtual event.

Using TVU One mobile transmitters and the TVU Anywhere app, the production was able to bring together a mix of footage captured by both professional cameras and camera phones. Thomas Stäubli, CEO of BBM Productions, whose team produced nine hours of live streaming content for Cybathlon, said the flexibility of the TVU systems helped with working with everyone involved, some of which had no broadcast or streaming experience.

To coordinate the live feeds from competing teams, the production used the TVU Command Center, a cloud-based management platform that remotely controls and monitors all live transmissions. Five BBM operators managed the event—one was assigned to the Command Center, the other four coordinated live streaming efforts with the competing teams.

In addition, the TVU Partyline system provided a videoconferencing interface for content creators to have real-time interaction between talent, crew and external content contributors.

TVU systems and support were provided by Cybathlon participants by Videolink, a systems integrator based in Zurich.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—The California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) has opted to purchase a complete TVU Networks live video package for the task of sharing live coverage of the governor’s weekly COVID-19 press briefings to local and national broadcasters, as well as cable news networks.

Since April, Cal OES has been participating in TVU’s Project Pool Feed, which allowed government entities to provide essential video pool feeds for news stations. Now Cal OES has its own TVU equipment to serve as a longer-term solution for distributing content to local and national media outlets.

The TVU package includes a TVU One transmitter, TVU Transceiver and TVU Grid. The TVU One allows for coverage of remote briefings from any location. TVU Grid provides scalable live video distribution to TV, radio, news publications, news portal, social media platforms, CDNs and the state’s website. 

The TVU Transceiver, meanwhile, serves as the backbone of the TVU ecosystem, able to host multiple TVU applications and enabling users to view, manage and monitor all video content from one device. It also is the gateway to TVU Grid, allowing IP content to be routed and distributed within a network or partner networks, TVU says.

“The services provided by TVU have been critical for us to provide information to the public, while doing that through a safe means for staff and principals,” said Brian Ferguson, deputy director of Crisis Communications with Cal OES. “We were able to get the equipment set up without difficulty and begin providing crucial information to Californians.”

For more information, visit www.tvunetworks.com.  

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—TVU Networks announced it is now shipping its flagship TVU One cellular mobile transmitter with an integrated 5G modem.

The company partnered with major commercial network carriers, including South Korea’s KT Corp., and modem module manufacturers like Canada’s Sierra Wireless to find 5G modems for its TVU One HEVC/H.265 1080p HDR and 4K HDR models, it said. 

“We are fortunate to be working with the very best partners in developing embedded 5G modems for our TVU One to bring to the industry. From the very beginning, our transmitters were engineered to support 5G, and we’re excited to be able to offer full cellular broadcast transmission capabilities on 5G networks with our flagship TVU One today,” said Matt McEwen, vice president of product management at TVU Networks.

“Despite the challenging circumstances we are all facing, our focus continues to be on supporting our customers and the larger community with business continuity initiatives, and our announcement today is an example of that commitment.”

The 5G-enabled TVU One transmitter is leveraging Sierra Wireless’s 5G EM919x embedded modules. It is capable of sending 70Mb/s over a 5G cellular infrastructure. Larry Zibrik, Sierra Wireless vice president, 5G & embedded broadband, welcomed TVU Networks’ use of the module, saying: “…it’s great to see TVU bring its latest device to market [using the modules].”

In addition to 5G, TVU One transmits simultaneously over aggregate connections from multiple sources, including 3G, 4G, LTE, microwave, satellite, BGAN, Wi-Fi and Ethernet.

More information is available on the company’s website.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—Full Sail University has enlisted TVU Networks’ IP-based live video technology into its curriculum for its Dan Patrick School of Sportscasting to assist with the university’s stated goal of “preparing the next generation of sportscasting talent.”

Students within the degree program will be equipped with the TVU One mobile live video transmitter and the TVU Anywhere mobile app. The TVU One is designed to deliver high-quality, low-latency feeds. The TVU Anywhere app, meanwhile, can be used to turn smart devices into live video transmitters.

The equipment will be used to assist students to capture live shots in the field while sending video feeds back to the in-house TVU transceiver for sportscasting productions and streaming.

“By setting up and using this equipment in a true-to-life way, the students were able to understand how these tools worked and can apply the classroom curriculum to real-life scenarios,” said Gus Ramsey, program director of Full Sail University’s Dan Patrick School of Sportscasting.

LAS VEGAS—TVU Networks will demo the latest enhancements for its TVU MediaMind media supply chain platform at the 2019 NAB Show, April 6- 11, in Las Vegas.

The company’s MediaMind story-centric workflow is designed to simplify content creation, production and distribution while integrating automation, AI, streaming, 4G and 5G, the company said.

“By automating and optimizing the media supply chain process, broadcasters can realize the benefits of taking raw content and re-using it across many platforms, programs and even organizations,” said TVU Networks CEO Paul Shen.

TVU MediaMind enables anyone to create stories “whenever and however they want efficiently, effectively and without limits,” he added.

At the NAB Show, the company will showcase the new 4K version of its TVU One mobile transmitter, which is capable of transmitting UltraHD/4Kp60 HEVC content. Despite the technical challenges involved in transmitting 4K, the new version successfully transmits full UHD/4K at 60fps thanks to the company’s “patented IS+ transmission algorithm and advanced FEC technology,” said Shen.

See TVU Networks at NAB Show booth C1707.

To register for the NAB Show, visit www.nabshow.com.

TVU Networks, the global technology and innovation leader in live IP solutions, will demonstrate the newest product updates for TVU MediaMind, its media supply chain platform, in the company’s booth (#C1707) at the annual NAB Show in April. TVU MediaMind’s story-centric workflow approach simplifies content creation, production and distribution while incorporating the latest integration and support for automation, AI, streaming, 4K and 5G.

“With the many, different ways media content is consumed today by viewers, broadcasters can no longer acquire, produce and distribute media for just TV. In fact, the way programs are created must completely change,” said Paul Shen, CEO, TVU Networks. “By automating and optimizing the media supply chain process, broadcasters can realize the benefits of taking raw content and re-using it across many platforms, programs and even organizations. TVU MediaMind allows anyone to create stories, wherever and however they want efficiently, effectively and without limits.”

For example, within content acquisition, the company will showcase a new 4K version of its TVU One mobile transmitter, which is the first cellular mobile unit with the ability to transmit Ultra-HD/4Kp60 HEVC content. “UHD/4Kp60 is a much more technically challenging resolution to achieve in a cellular mobile unit,” explained Shen. “However, using our patented IS+ transmission algorithm and advanced FEC technology, we were able to overcome these challenges and transmit video in full UHD/4K at 60 frames per second.”

Added Shen, “The TVU One 4K and our entire family of portable and rack-mount transmitters are also now 5G ready.”

Other TVU solutions receiving enhancements and updates that will be demonstrated at NAB include:

- TVU One TM1000, TVU’s flag-ship HEVC cellular 4G/LTE mobile transmitter

- TVU Anywhere, an app for capturing and streaming live video from anywhere

- TVU CAS (Contribution Automation Solution) with new automated workflow integration

- TVU Command Center for cloud-based centralized management of TVU devices and services

- TVU Grid, an IP-based video switching, routing and distribution solution

- TVU Producer for full-featured cloud-based live video production

- TVU Receivers and Transceivers for video decoding, distribution and management of TVU and IP video sources

- TVU Remote Production System, a cost-effective solution for live remote synchronized multi-camera production for news and sports

- TVU Router, a portable broadband Internet access point providing up to 200Mbps of untethered Internet connectivity

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—Citing a desire to boost live coverage of sporting events like cross country and dirt track racing in remote, often difficult locations, live digital sports provider FloSports recently announced that it has selected TVU Networks video over IP equipment to assist with its live, on-location video capturing and sharing of its sports programming.

FloSports will use the TVU equipment to simulcast events, produce live programming from remote locations and record raw footage for archiving material. This will include TVU transmitters powered by IS+, TVU’s proprietary transmission algorithm, in order to aggregate combinations of bandwidth mediums, including cellular, 3G/4G LTE, Wi-Fi, ethernet, Ka-band and Ku-band satellite, microwave, microwave mesh and BGAN.

In addition to the transmitters, FloSports has TVU One cellular mobile units to serve as backups for their live coverage.

TVU Networks, the global technology and innovation leader in live IP video solutions and TVN GROUP, one of Germany’s leading TV, Film and Outside Broadcast production company, today announce that they are working together to provide the German broadcast market with innovative, powerful and flexible IP video transport solutions.

“Our customers are facing growing demand for more news content across more platforms, so we need to help them with new and innovative ways of newsgathering. Deploying the advanced live IP video acquisition solutions from TVU, delivers the flexibility, mobility and reliability needed to tell stories from any location,” said Bernd Dypka, CIO TVN GROUP. “We worked closely with TVU Networks to ensure that our joint solutions enable broadcasters to get the heart of the news and action as it happens – whether in Germany or further afield.”

The first joint projects will see broadcasters deploy the TVU One mobile solutions to ensure that TVN customers can deliver the best possible live streaming video services, with unmatched quality and reliability regardless of location. The collaboration has been facilitated by TVU Networks’ long-term partner QVEST Media.

When discussing the project, Alexander Kritschker, Head of Professional Products, QVEST Media, said: “I’m looking forward to helping deploy the innovative joint TVN and TVU live video solutions so that the German broadcast market can more efficiently acquire, transport, share and re-use video to get on air first and enhance storytelling together with viewer engagement.”

David Jorba, EVP and Managing Director at TVU Europe added: “As the German market leader in broadcast facilities and newsgathering services, TVN Group has established a reputation for always being at the cutting edge. We are excited by the development of joint TVN and TVU solutions and look forward to ensuring that TVN continues to lead the way in providing innovative solutions that meet their customers requirement to tell stories better while increasing flexibility and efficiency.”

DENVER — The city and county of Denver know good entertainment when they see it. Whether it’s the Colorado Symphony or the 30th anniversary celebration of the ’80s pop band The Posies, the Levitt Pavilion in Denver has made it a priority to build community through music, one concert at a time.

That may explain why the municipal access television station for the local government, Denver 8, was moved to find a way to resume broadcasting and live streaming of the concert series Live@Levitt — even though Levitt Pavilion itself is in the midst of a sort of topography minefield.

Levitt Pavilion lies within a natural bowl in the middle of Denver’s Ruby Hill Park, which ironically also has one of the highest elevation points in Denver. That means that while the park offers 360-degree views of the Mile High City, it lacks total internet connectivity.

Even the city and county of Denver’s own network that connects other outlying facilities doesn’t run close enough to provide a short extension to the venue.

In addition to the park’s lack of connectivity, a section of it lies in a river valley. Denver’s city hall, the site of Denver 8 TV’s master control operation, is in the middle of the city, surrounded by tall buildings, and without line of sight, renting a microwave hop to broadcast these concerts has not proven feasible. For a public organization, renting a satellite uplink has been cost prohibitive. And the installation and monthly contract charges offered by the local high-speed internet provider — who could connect the production to a network for a wired feed — has also proven too costly for Denver TV 8, the organization said.

As a result, the city turned to another technology — mobile IP transmission — to send live feeds from the Levitt Pavilion Denver to master control in Denver’s city hall.

Using the TVU One (shown) mobile IP transmitter from TVU Networks, the city government production team is able to distribute signals for live streaming and broadcast. A remote production control room at the back of the amphitheater switches the program, which is then fed into the TVU One and sent to TVU video receivers at city hall for live broadcast on the Denver TV 8 Comcast channel and streamed to the website Denver8.tv.

The city says it turned to the TVU One because it offered a one-step solution for this particularly tricky remote transmission situation. The TVU One is available with HEVC video compression and the company’s Inverse Statmux Plus (IS+) transmission algorithm; the combination allows the system to transmit HD-quality video with half-second latency at 3 Mbps. According to TVU, the system is available with embedded modems and can transmit simultaneously over multiple connections including cellular, microwave, satellite, Wi-Fi and Ethernet.

Despite the park’s less-than-optimal transmission location and the stormy Denver summer evenings, there city has not reported any transmission service interruptions. “We had a lot of rain storms last summer and never experienced one interruption in our transmission,” said Alan DeLollis, TV communications and video operations manager for Marketing and Media Services for the city and county of Denver. “Weather destroyed two audio boards and front-of-house tents were torn down by the wind and rain, but the TVU unit kept on working.”

DeLollis said the unit brings more potential for collaboration between city agencies and as a pool feed shared to commercial networks and social media.

“We see our TVU One unit offering us the option to change the dynamic of how we deliver our production services to other city agencies and create a platform where community engagement in public outreach is much more possible,” he said. “The next step is using TVU One as an engagement and a sharing tool.”

The organization is discussing increasing coverage of live city events that can be distributed to others. That includes potentially creating a pool-feed dedicated to city-related press conferences and ribbon-cutting ceremonies that can be shared with commercial media or live to social media.

“If they have a news hole, they could look to our feed and immediately have something to fill it,” DeLollis said. “If something comes up that they’re modestly interested in, they’ll have our pool-feed to use. It would also help them contain remote production costs. Our feed would show up on their TVU system, and they can choose to use it or not. It could provide the city a lot more exposure.”

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One of the more intriguing storylines of this year’s NAB Show was the realization that the biggest impact that automated intelligence will have on the television industry is that AI will allow production to change its focus from a program-centric process to a story-centric process where content is automatically produced, targeted and distributed to the viewer. In short, using AI will allow broadcasters to identify and tailor video content to individual tastes, and moreso, allow content producers to better monetize their assets.

This concept—known as “Media 4.0” where AI is used to automate the production and distribution of media to any device on-demand—has been around for several years. Whereas Media 1.0-3.0 represented the evolution of media from film and theater to radio and television broadcasting and finally to the current IP-based landscape, 4.0 can best be illustrated by the music industry’s use of big data and the cloud to provide the personalization of media consumption down to a granular level, according to Paul Shen, founder of TVU Networks, a provider of IP-based media production and distribution tools. Using Spotify as an example, Shen noted that the music streaming services’ popularity is not necessarily because of the depth of its library, but by the ability of its sophisticated algorithms to learn consumer’s musical tastes, creating “personalized radio.”

“I have 90 days of music collections on iTunes and I don’t listen to it at all, I use Spotify,” Shen said. “The reason is easy. I don’t have to do the work. Spotify offers the content the way I want it. It uses artificial intelligence to create the playlist.”

TEN YEARS BEHIND

This use of AI has helped the music industry and IP-based video services like YouTube and Netflix to leapfrog 10 years ahead of broadcast, according to Shen, who believes that current production and distribution methods are bogged down by the human-driven assembly-like process that can be changed to an automated process by using AI and machine learning with the unlocked power of metadata. To overcome these hurdles, TVU introduced its MediaMind cloud platform at the 2018 NAB Show.

MediaMind puts the concept of Media 4.0 into practice by using AI, and object and speech recognition to maximize the use of media assets, particularly in live production. This “smart media factory” works within the existing video production workflow but enhances it by automating the ability to identify video content and push it to a variety of platforms.

Shen uses President Trump’s recent North Korean prisoner release ceremony as an example of how the MediaMind concept could be put into practice.

“There were a lot of cameras there that were recording for hours, waiting for the moment [prisoners debarked from the plane], but they didn’t know exactly when,” Shen said. Using AI-powered facial recognition technology enabled by MediaMind, the cameras and mics could be automated to just focus on particular shots of interest to individual viewers, for example.

This CAS (Contribution Automation Solution) is one part of TVU’s MediaMind concept, but another equally important concept is the automation of the entire planning, acquisition and routing process. It integrates with the news system, router, camera, transmission devices and alert system. Once a story is created, the system will help manage resources by sending an alert message to the corresponding reporters and crews as well as all of the connected devices, such as cameras, transmission devices, routers and recording devices. Once content arrives into MediaMind, it becomes instantly searchable via metadata that is tagged to the content from acquisition onward. This advanced search capability gives MediaMind the ability to push content to the producer, rather than the producer having to manually access it.

“A producer says ‘I want to write a story about the return of the three Americans from North Korea,’” Shen notes as an example,” the content will appear next to him rather than him having to go search for it.”

IN PRACTICE

The MediaMind API is already being integrated into the workflows of 4-5 of TVU’s approximately 2,500 TV station customers. Shen says customers can pick and choose which parts of MediaMind they want to integrate into their processes, which covers the production chain from acquisition, editing, processing and distribution.

In today’s live televised production environment, nearly 99 percent of the raw material goes unused and therefore, un-monetized, according to Shen. Current production processes are tedious and don’t meet the demands of today’s viewer, who is used to using social media to provide the type of feedback that allows content to automatically be “pushed” to them.

Shen thinks Media 4.0, illustrated by TVU’s MediaMind platform, represents the future of live production—an integration between production and consumption—where viewers’ tastes, rather than the producers’ whims, will drive a more “story-centric” workflow.

“Media 4.0 is going to fundamentally change what’s needed to make the TV industry meet the demand of the audiences,” Shen said. “That’s what this whole initiative is about.”

LAS VEGAS—TVU Networks is set to premiere the TVU One TM1000G—a new model of its TVU One IP newsgathering transmitter—at the 2018 NAB Show. Weighing just 2.2 pounds, the TVU One TM1000G features an embedded global modem that makes it easier for broadcasters to transmit live coverage of important events, like elections, natural disasters and sporting events, from virtually anywhere in the world.

With the global modem, broadcasters need only insert local SIMs wherever they are into the transmitter and they’re ready to go live. Compared to TVU Networks’ standard model, the TVU One TM1000 IP, the new TM1000G offers increased flexibility, robust functions and hassle-free operation, without sacrificing performance or picture quality.

Previously, depending where in the world the user wanted to broadcast from, the standard model required that a specific set of modems be installed to ensure compatibility with a particular region’s SIMs. This meant that modems had to be swapped out if a broadcaster planned to use it in a country that required a different modem configuration.

The TVU One TM1000G transmitter is available with HEVC video compression and TVU’s patented Inverse Statmux Plus (IS+) transmission algorithm to transmit full HD quality video with a half-second of latency at 3Mbps. And it can transmit simultaneously over multiple connections, including cellular, microwave, WiFi, Ethernet, BGAN and satellite.

The 2018 NAB Show takes place in Las Vegas, April 9-12. TVU Networks will be in booth C1707. For more information, visit www.nabshow.com.

Read up on all of TVT's NAB Show Sneak Peeks and other 2018 NAB Show news here.

MOUNTAINVIEW, CALIF.—TVU Networks got into the swing of things during a recent production of “Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola – Jazz” show at the Lincoln Center. New York-based production company Gazeta USA utilized the company’s TVU One mobile video transmitter to send coverage to Tokyo-based TV Ashai’s primetime news program, “Hodo Station.”

The TVU One unit features TVU Networks’ Inverse Statmux transmission algorithm, allowing it to deliver transmission resiliency, performance, picture quality and sub-second latency in a compact for factor.

The “Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola – Jazz” production took place on June 23.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF.—Television Broadcast Satellite, a 24-hour news network in Taiwan, has announced it is deploying TVU Network’s TVU One and TVU Anywhere app to expand its mobile IP video transmission capabilities. TVBS previously used TVU’s TVUPack cellular uplink backpacks.

TVU One

TVU One is a live, mobile IP newsgathering transmitter that uses the same transmission resiliency, performance, video picture quality and sub-second latency as the TVUPack, but in a smaller, lightweight and compact form factor. TVU One also features TVU’s Inverse StatMux Plus.

The TVU Anywhere is a smart device-based app that allows broadcasters to use their smartphones or laptops as a high quality, low latency video transmitter.

Located in Mountain View, Calif., TVU Networks is a provider of IP-based live video technologies.