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Transcript of April14 nzvn2
APRIL 2014 Vol 201
We are here at Protel Auckland for a demonstration of
Livestream with Mark Hall from Corsair Solutions. I
spoke with Mark after a full-on hour demonstration.
Mark also did the same demonstration at Protel’s
Wellington Office.
Ed: Mark, I have to say that
my brain has been rather taxed
today listening to all this new
technology. This is an area
that I’ve avoided as much as
possible, all this internet stuff,
but well, you’ve got to learn
these things and I must say
I’ve learnt an awful lot today.
Now just give us a very simple
view of the Livestream pro-
ducts. My understanding is
that you’ve got two paths here.
The first one is a single camera
streaming solution so run us
through that first?
Mark: Our single camera
solution would be the
Livestream Broadcast, which is
a complete HD live video
streaming device without the
need for a PC.
Ed: This is just a little red
box, runs on three AA batteries
or an external power and it takes an HDMI feed in?
Mark: That’s right, and it delivers via the Ethernet,
on a WiFi network or USB 3G/4G modem.
Ed: So you’ve got all of those options and that then
streams that output from your camera to where?
Stream-Power at Protel
Ed: So livestream.com is a server that is run by
Livestream so, if you take the free account, all you’re
paying for is your own Telco provider for the data that
you’re uploading to it, then what happens?
Mark: That’s correct … livestream.com is a
website and it has the content delivery network behind
Mark: It streams to www.livestream.com Now
depending on the account you have, even if you have a
free account, you can then share that feed and
someone can watch it on a smart TV, say through a
Roku or their iPad or their Android or their computer.
Mark with the Livestream control system.
Mark: It has full TVR and video on demand
support, so they can easily watch it from the start. You
can also upload a video that you’ve done elsewhere and
anyone can view that stream or video on demand as
needed.
Ed: And in that free version it’s sitting there for 30
days?
Mark: That’s correct – unlimited event pages
(*one event at a time.) Unlimited viewers and storage
( storage of media is only kept for 30 days ) check out
the various plans http://new.livestream.com/plans
Ed: So signing up for a free account provides anyone
with the opportunity to try this, see how it works and
then find out the advantages of the paid upgrades.
Certainly, the advantages from what you showed us
today were considerable – especially the ability to make
it private so that nobody else can see, and also the
ability to put it on your own website?
Mark: Yes, that’s correct. Once it’s out there, you
can stream to wherever; with some of the more
premium accounts, you can lock it down so it’s not
visible on livestream.com; you can embed that in your
website, you can password protect it, you can control
the embedding location, so if someone has it on your
website .com/videos – if they try and share that and
embed that somewhere else, you can control where
that’s played from so no one else can play it back on an
external site. There is a lot of flexibility about that.
Ed: And the video quality is up there – I mean, we’re
talking maximum upload speed of 2.3meg per second?
Mark: So the broadcaster will do up to 2.3meg. It
will do either a constant bitrate uplink or an adapted
bitrate uplink, so we can use anything.
As I demonstrated a short while ago, my mobile phone
is a wireless hotspot, or if we had a very high speed
connection we could have a constant bitrate 2.3meg
720p stream going out which looks very, very good.
Ed: And in all of this, the only cost is actually buying
the little red box?
Mark: That’s right, so it’s quite exciting for us,
because Livestream offer a complete end to end
solution. I suppose the only thing that’s missing is your
internet connectivity.
Someone can buy one of these devices, whether it’s a
church, whether it’s a business, and they can stream.
Apart from the stream that’s going out, which can be
viewed by an unlimited number of viewers at no cost, it
will also store the event for 30 days, so that event can
be playable back for 30 days even on the free account.
Ed: In fact, you don’t actually have to use a camera –
you could stream this out off a timeline with an HDMI
output?
Mark: That’s correct. So there’s also producers
tools which work on platforms like the Mac, you can use
say Face Time and stream to the Livestream platform
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Page 3
that which hosts the video content and the live stream.
You can actually view that on livestream.com or you
can send that link out and someone could just open up
the email or you can share it via Facebook or Tumblr or
Twitter or even embed it on your own website.
Ed: So you can tell a whole lot of people that this is
coming, here’s the link so that they can be prepared,
for example, at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, to go to this
link, log in and they can watch that live stream?
Mark: Yes that’s correct.
With a free account, they need to actually log into it
but, with the basic business accounts, you don’t need a
password.
So you can send that link out and you could have ten
people or 10,000 people viewing that stream and you
get no overages i.e no excess usage charges for the
number of viewers viewing that stream.
Ed: And if they’re half an hour late because the car
broke down?
The red box in front of the camera is yourstreaming device - not large but very powerful.
more on page 6
with Face Time, or you could even use your mobile
phone and have that streaming live into your
Livestream account in addition to the broadcast, so it’s
very, very flexible.
Ed: So this little red box must be very expensive if it
offers all of those things in one?
Mark: No, it’s actually not very expensive. It has
a list price of around about AUS$700 including GST.
Some of the features which make it very appealing – it
has things like you have your three AA batteries,
whereas other systems that are more expensive have
internal batteries that are non-removable, when they go
flat, you know, you’re cactus. So here you can easily
change the battery.
ATEM to get your camera feeds into the Livestream
Studio software, but then you have all this functionality
that’s coming from the Livestream Studio software, so
four simultaneous streams out, Picture in Picture, four
ISO simultaneous records, tallies, all the features that
we have run through would be available to you.
Ed: But rather than you build up your own system,
you’ve gone one step further and built up a nice little
suitcase with a lot of Blackmagic in there, but it’s all
guaranteed to be working together?
Mark: That’s correct. So as you saw, we had the
HD500 being displayed. The HD500 is a truly portable
system. It has an inbuilt screen, it’s got inbuilt stands
and it comes with a carrycase that’s actually flight
friendly, which is quite
unique compared to other
systems around.
It is a complete solution for
the Livestream platform.
You just give it your camera
inputs and you can do four
ISO records as well as four
streams out. Those streams
do not have to go to
Livestream alone. We can
go contribution quality
through say to Jigsee,
YouTube live, we can go to
Akamai, Wowza – and a
variety of different
platforms; we’re not limited
to where we go. We can
also go to a backup
publishing point and even
have backup hardware units
as well.
Ed: And there’s bigger
versions than this, but
certainly this little HD500
shows what’s in there, so as well as having five camera
inputs, you can of course feed in … does it have an
internal storage where you can put some video in for
playback?
Mark: Yes it will store roughly about 20 hours of
1080i at 100meg of storage in there. So apart from
doing those four simultaneous records onto the internal
storage, we can also store onto – go to a USB drive or
an eSATA or a USB3 or a LAN location. We are not
limited exclusively to what’s in here. That’s a very
stable portable system.
Ed: And the system shown here is connected up to a
4K Sharp monitor, so you’ve got a huge desktop that
you can have a whole lot of displays on and do all your
switching and set things up and put in your graphics. It
really is a little television studio isn’t it?
Mark: We have it set up here on a 4K monitor,
and we’ve reversed the screen, so we’ve got the 4K
monitor displaying the main studio screen with your
preview and your programme and all your graphics in
your media. We’re actually using the HD500 as a multi
viewer and we’re showing the streaming status and the
amount of viewers on there and our various camera
feeds. In addition to that, we can run up to four multi
screens out, so they can be different combinations of
programmes and previews and recording with all our
audio levels and our markers, tallies and our names.
Page 6
Some of the interested who attended the show at Protel in Auckland.
Ed: Was that “cactus”?
Mark: Like “dead in the water” or “dog meat”.
Ed: Ahhh, must be an Australian-ism. Alright, so
that’s the single one, and then, to really blow your
mind, there are studio options?
Mark: Yes well, we have the Studio software that
is available for purchase by itself, that works with
virtually any Blackmagic device, whether it’s a
Blackmagic Intensity or a Thunderbolt or USB3 device
or even an ATEM that enables you really to get the most
out of your Blackmagic devices.
Ed: So you’re talking about a Blackmagic device
inside a PC, a laptop or something like that?
Mark: Yes, but also a USB3 device or a
Thunderbolt. It doesn’t have to be inside a PC, it could
be a portable device that’s attached to your computer.
So this software works with that and uses a Blackmagic
device as an input.
Ed: Okay, so in summary, with something like an
ATEM television studio from Blackmagic and a laptop,
you can load the Livestream software into the laptop
and whatever the Blackmagic device does, you can use
its features to stream out the video onto the Livestream
server?
Mark: That’s correct. So if you took, for example,
say a Livestream, say an ATEM, you would be using the
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And we also have this connected up to a Sony
Broadcast LMD-A220 monitor with a programme out.
So we can have SDI or HDMI programme out as well.
Ed: And a final word from Ken – Protel, you’re a
reseller of this product and obviously the place to come
to see it. There’s lots of streaming product out there,
how does this fit in the offer Ken?
Ken: Wow this is a fantastic product and it’s not just a
streaming product, it’s actually a television station in a
box and it does a heck of a lot more than I thought it
would do now that I’ve seen the full demonstration,
particularly in the graphics side and the fact that you
can ISO record on some of the boxes.
It‘s going to be great for sports; for a small TV station
setup, it’s amazing.
Some of the customers who came today have specific
requests for live events and it doesn’t solve everything,
but boy does it go a long way.
Ed: But we are looking forward to some upgrades at
NAB I understand?
Ken: Yes, I’m looking forward to those; there is
already a new software upgrade with more features I’ll
be loading shortly.
Ed: And one of the benefits of you being a
representative of this and other product is that people
can come and talk to you and go through their
requirements and see what fits?
Ken: Yes exactly and you can see that, just by being
here, we’ve got multiple Sony and Canon cameras
attached to it, so we can actually offer the whole
package and cater to suit the customer.
Ed: And the really good thing is that you actually
have one here?
Ken: Yes we have an HD500 as a demonstration
product so those interested can take a close look and
see what they think.
Ed: Well that’s the good thing about being here on
the ground isn’t it, people can actually come and see it
Ken?
Ken: Exactly and we can have it up and running
connected to a source and they can have a fiddle with
it.
Ed: There’s nothing like a … no, I’ll stop there.
Anyway for those who want to see the product in the
flesh call Ken at Protel on 09-379-1432 and arrange a
demonstration or ask for New Zealand pricing. NZVN
Page 8
How many glasses of wine does it take to get a steady selfie?
And Still the TributesFlow ...Hi Grant
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I really wanted him to point at the coffeebut he’s wise to me now.
Coffee with DavidLouise, you’ll be pleased to know David Colthorpe is not
dead – in fact, he’s sitting opposite me.
David: I’m not dead, hello Louise, how are you?
And I must say I did appreciate your comments in the
last issue; that was very kind of you. So here I am. Ihaven’t been anywhere, we’ve been working away
doing what we do … I’ve just sort of re-engaged with
Grant and thought it might be time to get back into the
fold. So that’s what I’m about today.
Ed: But you won’t be visiting Louise and delivering
tapes anymore?
David: Sadly I won’t have to take the risk …
Ed: ... of losing your wheels in Mt Wellington?
David: Of losing the tapes. That’s rather unkind …she was rather depreciative before of her socio-
economic area which I think is totally …
Ed: Don’t dig too deep David – I live in the same
suburb.
Anyway, the title for this is not “Tea with Mussolini” but
“Coffee with David” and we’re here talking with David
Colthorpe today as he’s resurfaced on NZ Video News
because we’ve finally convinced him that the companyhe represents in New Zealand should really have a
profile with our readers.
We’ve heard the name Tectyl before David, but we
always thought it was a car underbody protectant. Is
that what you’re selling?
David: (sigh) This is Techtel …
Ed: Oh sort of with a hyphen in it, like K-Tek?
David: No, there’s no hyphen – Techtel. We’ve
been around a while, 26 years actually.
Page 10
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Ed: I know there are some very big
products that Techtel represent here in
New Zealand, that are in the major
broadcasters and I suppose the grandest
would be Harmonic?
David: Yes, Harmonic is very
significant in our offering. We have set
up a joint venture with Harmonic Inc. inthe US and represent Harmonic
throughout Australasia.
Ed: What are the sort of products that
make Harmonic so significant in our
industry?
David: I guess the summary for
Harmonic is that they’re an organisation
that creates the new wave of productsthat are delivering “the new services to
the new screens” – that’s the best way I
can describe it. So the streaming
services that you might view on tablets,
your phone, or other devices, and also
the new digital over-the-air services.
TVNZ’s DVB headend is an example of a
Harmonic installation in New Zealand.
Ed: So it’s obviously an area ofgrowth?
David: It’s a huge area of growth.
Everybody is now moving towards, or
investigating their options for, delivering
into that IP space rather than
conventional broadcast delivery.
Ed: So it must be a sign of confidence in Techtel that
Harmonic have taken on this relationship, because
being such a major player in the delivery industry, they
wouldn’t take on a company that wasn’t sound and
going to represent their products well?
David: Certainly, in fact, that underlines a bit of
what Techtel is about inasmuch that we come from an
enterprise IT kind of mindset rather than, perhaps, the
traditional broadcast vendor mindset. That’s obviously
a very good fit to these new types of technologies.
Ed: Okay, so obviously there are some other big
products there, but in the broad realm of the NZ Video
News readership, there are a couple of products that we
talked about that you think that more people might be
interested in?
David: Yes, we represent products from TVLogic,
the video monitor manufacturer, and also yellobrik from
LynxTechnik, which is a German manufacturer of very
good quality glue products, and both these are very
much worth investigating.
Both these manufacturers offer products that are really
good value, very high spec, very good quality with
excellent quality assurance and – important these days
– prompt delivery.
I recently went to Seoul to have a look through the
TVLogic factory and attended some training there and
they’re a most impressive company. A very meticulous,
very credible company indeed; as is LynxTechnik –
they’re a German company and you can just imagine
what their equipment is built like. It really is absolutely
staggeringly high quality …
Ed: Yes, I’ve got a German wife.
David: Well there you go, she’s also built well is
she? Oh, I guess we’ll have to change that.
Ed: No, no, we don’t change anything David.
David: Oh that’s new is it?
Ed: So anyway, we’re going to hear a lot more about
those at NAB, because we’ll be doing stand visits to
TVLogic and LynxTechnik and bringing those to you in
the May and June issues. Now, tell me about
purchasing – you’re obviously here on the ground, you
don’t have a showroom, you don’t keep all theseproducts in your backroom, how are people going to go
about getting their yellobrik’s or their TVLogic monitors?
David: So specifically for LynxTechnik and TVLogic,
we have set up reseller arrangements through the
normal channels in New Zealand; Protel, DVT, AVA, A2Z
and also through the Techtel New Zealand Webshop.
We have a simple but, I think, quite effective Webshop
for online purchases for these types of products. Thepoint to make about using our Webshop is that there
are real humans behind there, so if you do place an
order on the Webshop, which you may find convenient
just from the point of view of using a credit card or just
for speed and ease …
Ed: Or you’re not in Auckland, Wellington or
Christchurch?
David: You may not be handy to a dealer, or
maybe you just prefer to do it that way – you will getan almost immediate contact from a real flesh and
blood person, somebody who you can talk to. Someone
with a phone number and an email address where you
can actually track the progress of your order and take
up any issues you may have. Modern logistics makes
the stock location – be it Sydney, Auckland, or a
manufacturer’s warehouse – almost irrelevant, so order
fulfilment is pretty efficient.
Ed: But there are benefits also of going through thedealer?
Page 12
David: Of course, it may be part of a larger project
with that dealer; it may be that you have account terms
that you wish to utilise; obviously you have a
relationship which you will value with a dealer too. So
there’s a different model there and one that we fully
support.
Ed: And there shouldn’t be much of a price difference
either way, so it’s really your choice as to the modelthat you want to use in purchasing equipment?
David: It is, it’s really over to the customer’s own
preferences, yes.
Ed: And are you happy being on your own looking
after New Zealand?
David: Well, I’m not really “on my own” as I have
my reseller and support partners here in New Zealand
and there is a big team back in Australia.
What inspires me is that this structure provides
flexibility allowing us to adapt to individual customer’s
requirements.
After all in the end it’s still very much a personal
business, you’re on their premises talking to people,
that’s the way it works isn’t it.
Ed: Oh it’s about relationships David?
David: Hasn’t it always been about relationships?
Of course it has.
Nurture your relationship with David by checking out
Techtel products by visiting your favourite dealer or by
visiting the Techtel Webstore at shop.techtel.co.nz
NZVN
Page 13
Fast Deliveryon the Web
We are at TVNZ with John
Foggo, Platform and Content
Operations Manager. We
are not in TVNZ’s Hobson
Street HQ but in a
temporary location shared
by curiously competitive
neighbours.
Ed: John, I understand
you look after things digital
at TVNZ?
John: Yes that’s right
– I look after the operations
for Digital Media, which
means content production
and also the platform that
the teams use to produce
that content – mostly
focused around video
content, but a bit of image
and text content as well for publishing to the websites
and the apps.
Ed: You’re not actually sourcing any of this content –
somebody’s providing material such as the daily
programming or special things and then you’re
repurposing it for web release?
John: Exactly. So I look after both the News and
On Demand output for digital media at TVNZ, but 99%
of that content is produced by the broadcast systems
and teams we have here.
This includes everything from the cameramen in the
field for News through to the acquisition of our
entertainment shows from our distribution partners. So
more often than not, what you see on our digital
services is exactly what you’ve seen, or will see, on air
as well.
Ed: Are you doing that delayed TV ONE minus one
hour – is that you?
John: No, actually, that’s organised by the
broadcast operations guys. Anything that you see on
the TV through your Sky box or through Freeview,
that’s all broadcast operations; anything you see from
TVNZ that is on your PC at home or your Apple iPhone
or iPad or your Android device, that comes from my
department.
Ed: Now it would seem mildly suspicious to some
people that, on the outside of the building here, there’s
lots of big Telecom signs and then there’s a little TVNZ
sign. Is there something in that, some rumour that I
could spread?
John: I think that rumour’s already been spread.
No, no big announcements there. For the Aucklanders
who live close by who have been past TVNZ, it’s a very
different looking building now. The satellites are still on
top, but there are very few people left inside. The
entire building is being refurbished. The business areas
for TVNZ, aside from News and broadcast operations,
are now based here in the Telecom tower; they had
some space for us, so we’re here renting for two years.
Ed: Bit of spare money from SKYCITY I presume?
John: I guess that’s no secret. We quite enjoy it
here in the new building for Telecom, but we’re really
looking forward to the new version of TVNZ HQ for sure.
Ed: But you must make sure that those Telecom
people don’t get a look in here because they’re planning
to offer a VOD service too, aren’t they?
John: Yes. There have been a few big
announcements in the market related to On Demand
and the VOD space as we call it – ShowMe TV recently
was announced. But to be honest, we’re really focused
on what we’re doing as the market leader for VOD in
New Zealand.
Ed: Well hopefully it’s improved, because I do
remember, John, that in the early days when TVNZ On
Demand was announced, I went on at home and I just
kept getting this little buffering circle when I was trying
to watch something … and I gave up thinking
“hmmm ... they need to do something.” I presume you
have by now?
John: Yes we have and we would put our hands
up and say that those early days were really hard.
I think we were quite ambitious with what we were
trying to do. I’ve been here for three of those five
years, but inherited some of the issues that were still
around in terms of video playback and buffering.
We knew the user experience wasn’t perfect. I think if
you were in central Auckland with a really great internet
connection, you were pretty good; if you were in the
regions it was really difficult to watch.
Ed: And those on dial up?
John: Those on dial up had no chance to be
honest, and will still struggle a bit often, but we’ve
worked really, really hard on video delivery in
particular.
About 2½ years ago, we changed a couple of really
important pieces of that puzzle, and one was to go with
what’s called an outsourced video partner, an OVP.
This company called Brightcove is based out of Boston
in the US, and also Akamai is our distributor. So
Brightcove is responsible for receiving and transcoding
Page 15
John with Samsung TV demo unit.
all of our video for web distribution. We send them a
master file that comes out of our broadcast system. We
send it across to the States, they turn out all the
renditions required to help you receive it at home.
Akamai, the guys that actually do that delivery, are a
massive CDN ( Content Distribution Network.)
Ed: So how long does that take?
John: It can vary. Obviously, we have content ofall sorts of length for On Demand – it can be as quick asa 30 second promo, or it can be a 2 hour coverage ofAmerica’s Cup. Most people reading your publicationwill know that that’s the major determining factor inhow long encoding takes. The system we had at TVNZprior to that was very much a series of desktopencoders based inside the building with a lot of humanintervention. So it took far, far longer to do it withoutthe help of Brightcove in the old days. It was also moreprone to error, so not only would you struggle at hometo receive the file because the encoding was not great,but the distribution on one of our local CDNs wasn’t upto scratch either … to be honest, sometimes we wouldget it wrong too, so we would be encoding the wrongfile for the wrong show, just because humans makemistakes.
Ed: So if you go to TVNZ On Demand, are you getting
it from the States, from a server there, or is itsomewhere in the Cloud?
John: The simplest way to say it, is it is in theCloud – it’s distributed across Akamai’s edge serverswithin New Zealand, and they have quite a few of them.
Ed: So it is coming from New Zealand servers?
John: Yes, region by region you’ll have access to
the closest local version of that file, and particularly
after it’s been viewed a number of times, Akamai do
some pretty magical things … a lot of what they do is a
bit of a dark art if I’m honest. But they are able to
distribute your content based on usage patterns as well,
so where content’s being consumed in certain parts of
the world, and then region by region, they can make
sure that there’s content primed and ready to go.
Ed: That’s really the crux of why I’m here. In the
production and postproduction worlds now we’re being
asked more and more to do things for the web and it’s
always been a case of choosing the right codec to
distribute that. I guess you’re in discussions with your
providers to come up with a range of codecs – what are
the sorts of things you look for to provide material
that’s not going to have that little buffering circle when
somebody tries to watch it?
John: Yes, that’s a constantly evolving discussion.
When we started, and when you would have tried to
watch On Demand, we were serving only Flash files. I
guess it was Macromedia Flash and then Adobe Flash
and we quickly knew that Flash wasn’t the format we
were going to continue with necessarily …
Ed: Because a particular “fruit” wouldn’t play it?
John: Exactly. That was probably the big
announcement and obviously that had repercussions for
everyone in the industry. So with Brightcove’s help, we
Page 16
moved to a range of different codecs. We send them
quite a simple file. As I said earlier, it comes out of our
Broadcast MAM, we run a version of Vizrt’s Ardome
broadcast playout system. My team have access to that
system and, based on the schedule and the available
rights for the content, just pull down files and get those
transcoded out of the broadcast system. The file that
that system creates is just a 720p H264 MP4 file, quite
a common file codec now for transport. That’s the file
that we deliver via a fast delivery service called Aspera
across to the States and that’s where Brightcove’s
encoders do the work.
Ed: So we can do that ourselves … I know with Adobe
Premiere, I have a huge H.264 list including that 720p
capability, so that’s a pretty good standard is it?
John: It is. It’s widely used. Apple pushed it
quite hard for a period there, particularly as an output
for iPhones and iPads. I’m not saying it’s necessarily a
favourite in the broadcast industry itself, because it can
minutes now. So we’re turning a pretty hefty encode
around quite quickly with the help of some internal
systems we’re running, and also Brightcove’s help.
Unfortunately, maybe a year ago, that used to be more
like an hour to two sometimes, just depending on how
busy people were.
Ed: But can’t you do those things progressively – I
know that in some situations when an OB truck is
receiving a transmission, it can actually put that
material on the timeline while the file is still being
delivered, and they can start editing that file as it
grows. Is that what you’re looking at doing for the
future?
John: Yes, I’ve seen some of that stuff displayed
at the likes of NAB and it’s really impressive technology.
I know there are people in Europe using that form of
delivery; “live to VOD” encoding, meaning the user can
actually watch a file as it’s being delivered to them, as
it’s being delivered out of broadcast. That would be our
goal for sure. We want to make sure our news is out as
quickly as possible online and we also want to make our
entertainment shows available fast.
Ed: But they’re not so time dependent surely?
John: They’re not at all. There are some local
productions which can deliver close to the wire because
of the way they’re shot. New Zealand’s Got Talent,
which is really popular for us, is an obvious one where
you’re dealing with a live production which can go
through an edit quite quickly and then be turned around
on the day and delivered to us quite late. But
generally, we’re publishing content up to two weeks out
in advance, so we have quite a nice buffer of let’s say
80-85% of our content is all ready to go at any one
point in time.
Ed: Okay, now in terms of delivering this through
TVNZ On Demand, how many levels of compression do
you offer; is it an automatic pick, your device, when it
logs in, does it pick the right one or do you have to do it
manually? How does that work?
John: It’s a little bit of both. Let me start with
your first question. We have a list of almost 20
versions we create now, “renditions” as we call them,
and they can range all the way from round 180-200
kilobits per second which is a very small file, all the way
up to 1500kbps. That may not sound like a lot to some
of your broadcast readers, but delivering that over New
Zealand’s internet landscape is …
Ed: Well that’s your neighbour’s problem isn’t it really
– I mean, you can blame them, we all do?
John: We think we’ve hit a sweet spot, and it
really does depend on the device you’re using, so for
each – let’s say for your desktop or for your phone or
for your tablet, we have a series of about 6-8 versions.
You start very small and, obviously, the frame size
decreases as the bit rate decreases and it goes all the
way up to 720.
At the moment, we don’t have any plans to go much
higher in terms of quality. We’re looking quite hard at
the big screen experience and the Samsung TV app we
have and the PlayStation 3 app, and are thinking about
that, but we also have to be really aware that our
customers are concerned about their data-caps. We
have a couple of ways of tackling that, and one is to
make sure that our compression is of great quality and
we’re not delivering too many bits over their pipe, but
Page 18
… I’ll go on record and say it’s not my forte, but I
understand it can be a long encode as well, compared
to others. It does a very good job of retaining quality
for the size of the file, but it is a highly compressed file
as well for the quality you’re getting.
Ed: So if you wanted to go up from there when you’re
doing the encode on your own machine, rather than
make the 720p file, you could do the 1080p?
John: Absolutely and we are actually indiscussions about maybe improving the source file we
deliver to Brightcove. The one thing we have to be
cognisant of as well, is transfer times and speed across
to their transcoders, so that may not matter for content
we have delivered weeks in advance, but it does matter
for things like the 6pm bulletin, which we have to
produce every single night, and that needs to get up
really, really quickly.
Ed: So how quickly does that get out?
John: We’ve made some big strides there. We’re
getting the 6pm bulletin, which is an hour episode
without breaks … we’re getting it up within 30-45
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also we’re trying to educate them as well, because in
fact you can consume a lot of video content with the
compression that is out there now, and not use a
helluva lot of your data cap in the process. So we’re
actually in the market running campaigns to educate
people, plus there’s a section on our site where you can
calculate how much you might use should you watch 10
episodes of Shortland Street, and that sort of thing. It’s
surprisingly little to be honest.
Ed: So how does the customer choose the codec that
they’re watching?
John: The codec that is used is actually
determined by the device that they’re looking at … and
one important thing to note, as well as the codec, is we
have to protect our content as well, so we use DRM
( Digital Rights Management ) technology on top of the
codecs as well.
So for our desktop service, we use Adobe Access; for
the handsets, the phones, the tablets we use Google
Widevine, and we’re looking at some other codecs
based on where we might go in the future as well. We
essentially have to say to our distributors, “we are
delivering to this new device and we’re going to use this
file type and this DRM type, is that compliant with your
requirements?” There is a back and forth process with
them to try and decide whether that is, and generally,
especially working with people like Brightcove, we have
our hands on the best DRM available. So the device
itself is the determining factor as to what file you
receive when you watch our pictures.
Ed: Are the codecs all H.264?
John: It’s the base codec that we use with
Brightcove and there will, in the future, be a few
different ones, but generally yes, it is. So we’ll create a
master set of renditions and that will then be used by
the devices.
Ed: Is there any way that you can follow the example
of MotoGP? Since Sky dropped the ball and didn’t buy
the rights to MotoGP, I’ve been watching it online, and
at certain times of the day, when the usage is heavy, I
get the low quality, I get 360p. Then through the
transmission as more becomes available, it increases –
it might be up to 480, and when it’s really clear I’m
getting 720p and it’s lovely. But it’s an automatic
change, depending on what else is being used. Can you
do that too?
John: Yes, that’s exactly what we’re doing and it’s
a complex mix of the device you’re using and the
network; so it assesses things like the screen size and
the CPU power of the device but also, like you say, the
network conditions around you as well – and that’s why
we create those eight files per device. So it’s a
combination of all of those factors and the customer is
then served the file that works for that moment in time.
We’re actually a fixed bit rate player on our desktop site
still. If you go to the PC site, you get to choose. You
can choose anywhere from 300 kilobits all the way up to
1500Kbps, and about 50% of our traffic is still through
that site. So we know our users are used to that, we
know that a lot of them will just have it set at the
quality of the setting they want, so we’re not that keen
to change that at the moment, but as we go to new
devices like the iPad, the iPhone and Samsung TV, then
yes, we’ll let Akamai and Brightcove make the decision
as to ( like your MotoGP example ) which file should be
given to you at a certain point of time, to make sure
that you don’t get that spinning wheel, but you get the
best picture available that your TV, or iPad or phone can
handle at that time.
Ed: And this of course works for other streaming
services. We’ve recently been shown, by a number of
vendors, box streaming services, so that our
programmes can go out to niche audiences. I guess
that setting up for receiving those is pretty much the
same as setting up for receiving TVNZ On Demand. So
what are the sorts of things that a user can do to
maximise their viewing experience? One, I guess, is
spending a little bit more on your broadband and going
from ADSL to VDSL, or maybe even fibre, but what else
can they do?
John: Well that’s probably the number one thing
you could do. I personally think ADSL and VDSL are
pretty good for the major regions; it’s certainly not my
area of expertise, but I’m not going to be jumping on
fibre anytime soon – I can’t where I’m living
unfortunately, I’m not on the roll-out map yet …
Ed: Talk to your neighbours.
John: Yes. You know I feel like we need to be
certain we do a fantastic job of making sure we have
the right set of compression and renditions to deliver to
the entire population of New Zealand, not just to the
major centres. So that’s where we put a lot of our
focus – and I get a lot of support from technology here
at TVNZ to test out those lower bit rate ranges to make
Page 20
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sure that the picture quality
is acceptable, and some-
times really good.
You know, it’s never going
to be HD when you’re
serving 300, 400 kilobits a
second, but the compression
methods are improving all
the time and it’s amazing
when you compare to what
a Flash file of 300K used to
look like 5-6 years ago
versus now. So obviously
you can pay more for your
broadband, but there are
other factors too – your
device might be a bit old,
the PC you’re watching on
might not actually be able to
cope with it from a CPU
point of view and, as you
pointed out with MotoGP,
there are some periods in
the daytime which are just
really tough. We see a huge
amount of contention from about 7pm all the way to
about 10.30-11 at night, every night and that’s when
everyone’s jumping on TradeMe, trying to get Netflix
down from the States and jumping on our service as
well obviously. So that’s a tough time often to watch
streaming TV over the internet, so if you can avoid
those really heavy times and watch say on Saturday or
Sunday morning, like we’re seeing more people doing,
then you’re probably going to get a better looking
picture over your pipe.
Ed: Or those of us who work from home, we can
watch in the afternoon, while the kids are still at
school?
John: There’s a lot of university students out
there using our services …
Ed: Oh no, there couldn’t be, not for education, no,
no, no. Now you mentioned Netflix … isn’t that a dirty
word around here?
John: Well you know we hold Netflix up as a bit of
a shining example in many ways …
Ed: So you can learn from your competitors?
John: Absolutely, and we’re not naïve, there are
lots of international people out there doing an awesome
job and we aim to be as good as them and we think
we’ve done a pretty good job so far.
Ed: But you couldn’t have the same content as them,
could you?
John: No, and I’m sure this isn’t a surprise,
content is essentially what makes these services.
Ed: Content is actually what makes most things in our
industry John. Some people do forget it, you know they
go for the sparkle, but it’s actually what’s there that’s
most important.
John: Yes, you can have the best built app and an
amazing interface and a great delivery network, but if
your movie catalogue is C List and the shows aren’t
what TVNZ has for example, then you’re going to
struggle, there’s no doubt about that. We, in Digital
Media owe a huge amount of thanks to our friends in
the TV Teams, as we are heavily reliant on what is
essentially a great relationship that they have built up
over time with our distribution partners. We’re really,
really lucky to benefit from the Warners and Disneys
and the ITVs to get such great content. It’s the stuff
that Kiwis love to watch and we’re just giving them
another screen to watch it on.
Ed: So there’s a future – this is going to get biggerand better and we’re going to see perhaps less
broadcast and more internet?
John: It’s an interesting discussion isn’t it,
because the lean back TV experience is a special one
and I don’t think we’re trying to replace that. I myself
do it as well. You know, I kind of look at it in a different
way and think that, as we just said, it’s all content and
TVNZ accepts that there are different ways to deliver it.
So we accept that the broadcast delivery platform isone way of doing it, but then there are loads of other
ways our users or customers want to consume content.
But, at the end of the day, it’s still the same content
we’re putting out. The broadcast business is a massive
business obviously for us – there’s an easy statement to
make! We look across the business in how we acquire
and commission content and the reality is that we want
to provide the choice for people. People love television,and we see IP-delivered content as complimentary to
television. It’s not a competition. At the end of the day
we want people to watch more TVNZ content. We can’t
force the user behaviour; we can help shape it a little
bit, but it will be consumed one way or another, so we
want to lead that and try and make sure we’re giving it
to them in a variety of ways.
Ed: And you’re not buying bandwidth that we used to
use our radio mics on are you?
John: No, there are no dark secrets going on
there.
Ed: It’s the neighbours.
John: It’s the neighbours you refer to!
Ed: We’ll send them a message tied to a dead cat
shall we?
John: There you go – I couldn’t possibly get
involved. NZVN
Page 22
Some of the TVNZ Platform and Content Operations team - and props.
What’s New
to Hire?We are at NZCameraHire
and Michael Zahn is showing
us some new equipment that
he’s got for hire.
Ed: Michael, you’ve added
some new cameras since we
last spoke and I guess the
top of the fleet must be the
Sony F55?
Michael: It is indeed the
Sony F55 which is quite a
nice little big camera. You
can make it a really big
camera if you put the R5
RAW recorder on the back
and a great zoom lens on
the front.
Ed: And this is a camera
you use yourself?
Michael: I have used it a
couple of times, yes. It’s
still early stages; people are
still getting used to that
camera and its capabilities, but now with quite a few
other people having invested in F5s, production
companies are more aware of the F5 and the F55 being
out there, so it’s being used more in actual productions.
It has kind of replaced the F3 as the camera of choice.
Ed: You obviously had a choice between the F5 and
the F55 – why did you go for the F55?
Michael: The F55 has a slightly better sensor, it uses
a global shutter, so unlike most CMOS cameras there is
no problem with image skew or flash banding. The
other major extra features that the F55 offers is the
ability to record compressed 4K footage internally and it
can shoot at up to 240 frames per second while the F5
only manages 120fps. The F5 can only record HD and
2K internally.
Ed: S-Log?
Michael: I’m not sure if there was such a difference
in S-Log software for the F5 and F55. I think there
must be some strange rumours out there.
Ed: But basically you’re very happy with your choice?
Michael: I’m very happy with the choice of the F55
camera and so are my clients who have hired it. They
are happy with the images that they’re getting out of it,
and so far, so good.
Ed: Are any of them struggling with the cinema look
as opposed to the video look?
Michael: Well some people think that Sony has more
of a video look, but with the latest S-Log3, they actually
quite closely matched it to the ALEXA cinema look.
That I think is what draws people to use the F55 now
and it’s an easy to use, well-built product. So that
definitely helps putting the camera out into the market
and, being lighter than the ALEXA is good, especially if
you’re doing handheld and the Sony quality is also
something to think of.
Ed: Now talking about quality, there’s quite a number
of 4K cameras out there on the market – some very
large ones and some very small ones, even little pocket
Page 24
Michael with his “pride of the fleet”, a Sony F55 with all the trimmings.
cameras from Blackmagic, but I guess there’s one big
difference that people might overlook in choosing a 4K
camera – what would that be?
Michael: Can you put decent glass on it? Decent
glass, yes, you’ve got to have some good quality glass,
something like the Zeiss Ultra Primes
which I have quite a range of.
At the moment there are 9, there’s a 10th
coming, or the Fujinon Cabrio 19 to
90mm and 85 to 300mm zoom lenses, or
Zeiss High Speeds which I have as well –
so there’s definitely a good selection to
go with the F55 camera.
Ed: And that was it, you made a
decision, to not only get the camera, but
the glass to go with it?
Michael: Well if you’re shooting on a
high quality camera in 4K, you don’t
want to put cheap lenses on it, because
glass is actually your most important
part in capturing the image.
If you have nice clean high quality glass
that has a perfect image throughout the
whole frame, then you do get the perfect
image on your camera as well.
Ed: When you say perfect image
across the whole frame, are you saying
that the focal point is matched to the
surface of the sensor, so you don’t get any blurring at
the edges especially?
Michael: Well some of the cheaper lenses that you
get, they might be sharp in the middle, but then you’re
looking at the outside, on the edges of the frame and
Page 26
Michael and soundie Peter Kraan on location in Christchurch.
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they’re suddenly all soft and yes, if you have decent
glass like the Ultra Primes or Cabrio then you definitely
get the right image in there.
Ed: Right, so we’ve got the glass sorted, the other
thing I noticed on your website, is that the cameras all
seem to be shoulder mount ones, or little handheld
cameras. You don’t appear to have any SLR style. Is
there a reason for that?
Michael: I do have one DSLR which is the 5D Mark
3, but I only bought it because I actually needed a
camera for my own photo taking. So no, I wasn’t going
to compete with all the other 5Ds that are out there.
My thoughts are that, if you’re shooting video, you
should use a decent video camera rather than a stills
camera that is video capable. So therefore, all the
cameras you see there are actually proper video
cameras and they deliver. You have the choice right
from a top of the line handy-cam style camera like the
Canon XA10 or 25 to the well established work horse
like the EX3 or the new follow up which is the PMW300.
Ed: Oh don’t say that, they’re very robust. I’ve got
one myself.
Michael: Oh they’re very good cameras, but I think
there are a lot of other cameras that deliver higher
image quality. Better they don’t have their own tapes
anymore, so you don’t get dropouts with memory cards,
you just stick them into your computer and you’ve got it
all digitised right away.
Ed: Oh well, you’re entitled to your opinions. Tape
has its place and I’m not going to be dragged into these
sticky things just yet you know. Let’s move on. In
other areas, what else do you spend your money on – is
it just equipment that you want to use yourself and
then, because you’ve got it and you’re not using it all
the time, you offer it for hire, or do you buy gear
specifically for the hire market?
Michael: Well obviously, me being a working DOP,
yes, there’s a lot of equipment that I buy that I
basically use on my shoots and then make available
through NZCameraHire, but there are other times such
as when a customer says we are kind of
needing this and that. Is there any
possibility that you may invest in that?
But in the end, I always seem to be
working with those pieces as well. Like
some of the latest purchases that I made
– Lockits, so if you want to lock down
camera timecodes together, we’ve got
them available; plenty of monitors right
up to 26 inch, because people are always
looking for a great on camera monitor or
a nice big client monitor; auto prompters
are very popular because people can
operate it themselves – I’ve got the
reasonably simple operating software.
There’s a professional version as well,
but I wouldn’t trust that one with anyone
other than with one of my professional
operators.
But for dry hire, I do have a simple
operating version where people can just hire the kit and
set it up themselves. Often people don’t have the $7-
800 that is required to book a system with an operator,
so they just dry hire a small or big auto prompter kit
and do it all themselves.
Ed: In terms of purchasing this equipment ( and I’ve
had many discussions over the years with various
people I’ve interviewed ), you have a choice of buying
locally or buying it from the internet. What’s your take
on this, how do you operate?
Michael: Well cameras I buy from New Zealand
because then I can get them serviced here.
I’ve just added a Canon C300 to my camera stable
because so many people asked for it and I know it will
be looked after locally. If one of my Sony cameras did
break down ( which they don’t actually ), then I can go
to the Sony Service Centre here and have it fixed within
a day or two.
Ed: And also they’ve got loan cameras haven’t they?
Michael: They do have loan cameras and they’re
very helpful in those aspects, so that’s why I really
appreciate the local service. But for a lot of other
things that don’t need servicing, like a shoulder rig or a
Page 28
This is a great camera for everyday shooting and it can
record in 50Mbps. And then there are the top ends with
Super35 sensor like the FS700, F3 and the F55.
Ed: And I’m very pleased to see you’ve still got some
HDV cameras there – obviously it’s a format that’s not
dead?
Michael: To be honest, I actually got a hire tonight
for the Z-7P but I think the format is definitely on its
way out because I haven’t had many enquiries for the
HDV cameras lately.
Ed: Well I needed one a while back Michael?
Michael: When was that – you didn’t come to me!
Ed: Oh yes I did – but it was nearly three years ago.
I didn’t need your PD150 however.
Michael: Yes, I think that’s also on the way out now.
I had one client who has been recording on the PD150
for the last 15 years, ever since it came out and the last
hire was late last year. We got talking about his hire
and he said he thinks he has to move onto HD now
because everyone else has moved on.
So I think, yes, that camera is definitely one for the
scrapheap.
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* Trial products are subject to the terms and conditions of the license and services agreement that accompanies the software. Autodesk and Smoke are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or a liates in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Autodesk reserves the right to alter product and services o erings, and specifications and pricing at anytime without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document. © 2012 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved.
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