SECTOR FOCUS BROADCAST TECHNOLOGY
lots of different formats of that, this
is about making the blacks blacker,
and the whites whiter and everything in
between much better in terms of video
quality”.
This demand for resolution
improvements is one reason video
compression is rising in importance.
Green explained, “If you want to go to
8K, you might need 100GbE (gigabit
ethernet). If you don’t have that
already installed, it will cost money to
be put in. The alternative is that you
compress the video and put it over
your existing infrastructure, which is
probably 1GbE or 10GbE.”
Broadcasters need to consider
what compression technique is
suitable for the application. Permanent
compression might be acceptable,
or there could be a need to return
the video to its initial format. This,
Green says, depends on the codec
used. “There are some codecs like
the MPEG based ones, which do quite
high compression. That’s more for
your streaming from the internet to the
home or from a camera out in the field
to a broadcast truck or something like
that.
“But there are other codecs, which
we refer to as mezzanine compression,
that do very lightweight compressions.
They just squeeze it enough to get it
into the network capability. Some of
those are visually lossless and some
of the mathematically lossless, so you
get back the pristine data that you put
in the front end.”
Using cloud in the right way
Cloud computing is becoming
vital to keeping pace with evolving
requirements for production, storage
and distribution techniques. Following
a trial in Salford, the BBC is building
a larger on-premise cloud in London.
Brightwell explained that this “will be
a bigger build, and it will be connected
to the internet, where previously
the little cloud in Salford was only
accessible on our R&D intranet. We’ll
be concentrating on what it means
to make it more widely available and
secure.
The benefit of that initial pilot,
Brightwell explained, was that the
project team could “understand the
technical issues that are involved in
operating a cloud” so the larger cloud
can be “specific to the types of work
needed for broadcast production”.
So, why not just throw everything
up to the cloud? Green explained “the
cloud has a perception that it’s cheap.
It’s a cheaper service to use, because
you’re not buying any equipment, but
actually, if you’re using it a lot, it’s
more expensive than buying your own
piece of equipment. If you’re doing live
news or sports 24/7, you would never
put that in the cloud because it would
be way too expensive. You would have
your own piece of equipment to do
that. It’s just a matter of balancing the
costs.”
For the BBC, automation is another
area that shows promise. Brightwell
explained, “Consider a small music
festival, where you have to take quite
a lot of equipment out on the road
to make a programme. We would
like to look at what it might mean to
have less infrastructure on site and
be able to connect up to a broadcastfriendly
automated cloud. Previous
events could provide a starting point,
so everything is automatically set up
with the editing software and graphics
that you need. A lot of manual set-up
is required at the moment, so the
idea that computers could handle the
tedious stuff and people can get on
with the more creative parts of the job
is worth exploring.”
Like other industry segments,
machine learning and artificial
intelligence are opening up
new possibilities for broadcast
technologies. Xilinx’s Green,
expects to see machine learning
used to detect faces within video.
Broadcasters can then retain video
quality around the face, but can then
throw away more information in the
background. This would mean less bits
would be streamed over the network,
which could deliver significant cost
savings.
Green see these technologies
delivering benefits elsewhere in
the production chain, with similar
techniques being used to control
cameras. He gave the example of a
football match where players could
be tracked in the same image, and
that data could also be tagged during
the broadcast. This could generate
automated replay, with machine
learning used to track events, like
goals scored or penalty decisions. The
director of the show would then have
a highlight reel instantly available to
them when required.
Technology moves from prototype
to adoption much faster than in the
past, so it could be a matter of just
a few years before we’re starting to
see these concepts being used widely
by broadcasters. What is clear is that
software holds the key to striking
the balance between old and new
investments.
“We would like
to look at what
it might mean
to have less
infrastructure on
site and be able
to connect up
to a broadcastfriendly
automated
cloud.”
Peter Brightwell,
BBC
Left: Xilinx’s Vivado
hardware design
suite
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