remote production

The Television Academy on Thursday revealed winners of its 72nd Engineering Emmy Awards, with four of the nine companies honored for developing and deploying remote production technology that has become invaluable in a year in which the industry saw widespread shutdowns because of the coronavirus pandemic.

New remote production techniques, distributed workflows and onsite safety protocols have dramatically reshaped sports production. As COVID-19 continues to be a threat, sports producers can expect less travel, trucks staying in place and a slowdown of UHD production until the crisis abates.

The year 2020 has forced many changes on TV broadcasters — one of the most visible has been through electronic newsgathering. With more sources stuck at home, broadcasters have increased their use of Zoom, WebEx, Skype and other consumer-grade Wi-Fi video conferencing services to help deliver the news.

Executives from Fox News and Graham Media say they’ll rely heavily on IP contribution, cloud editing systems and other remote production tools in their coverage of the 2020 election, and they’re also ready to settle in for the long haul if final results aren’t confirmed for days, if not weeks, after Nov. 3.

Leaders of television’s news and technology community will talk about how technology can facilitate coverage of the 2020 election season during a TVNewsCheck Working Lunch Webinar set for Thursday, Sept. 17 at 1 p.m. ET. Speakers are (top, l-r): Alan Komissaroff, SVP news and politics, Fox News Channel; Tony Plosz, SVP and CTO, Graham Media Group; Bogdan Frusina, founder, Dejero and (below, right: Stephane Guez, founder and CTO, Dalet Digital Media Systems; and, left, Glen Dickson, contributing editor of TVNewsCheck, who is moderating the event. Register here.

Mario Diaz Becar: Broadcasters have seen firsthand the agility, stability and reliability of the cloud since the pandemic accelerated its adoption. Functions like cloud ingest, edit while ingest and secure reliable transport are also promisingly on the horizon.

COVID-19 has had numerous tectonic effects on broadcast technology vendors, from accelerating a move to IP- and cloud-based systems to making for much uncertainty and probable consolidations ahead.

Broadcasters are prepared to stick with their remote production workflows for the long haul as the pandemic stretches on with no end in sight. A TVNewsCheck webinar last week found they’re continuing to try to bring as much of the studio into staffers’ homes as possible, not only for anchors and reporters but producers, director, editors and graphic artists, too.

Technology managers from ABC News, NBCU and Spectrum Networks will talk about the at-home studio and it’s impact on the future of news workflow during a TVNewsCheck Working Lunch Webinar set for July 23. Speakers are (top row l to r): Brendan Falco, senior director of operations at Spectrum Networks and NY1 News; Ben Kepler, director of broadcast operations and engineering at ABC News; Keith Barbaria, VP technology at NBC’s WBTS Boston, NBC Sports Boston, Telemundo Boston and NECN (r); and bottom row l to r): Fred Fourcher, founder and CEO, Bitcentral; Jade Kurian, co-founder and president; and Glen Dickson, contributing editor, TVNewsCheck, who will moderate. Register to attend here. 

As broadcasters consider a long-term shift to remote workflows, here are five key questions to tackle to guide decisionmaking.

Despite pushing newsrooms temporarily into mostly remote production, set design vendors say COVID-19 won’t have a lasting effect on where sets were heading before the pandemic. They say viewers are likely to see more LED panels and walls, virtual sets and augmented and virtual reality usage in news studios. Above, for the TF1 broadcast news studio in France, Planar delivered a 750-square-foot curved video wall.

Latakoo’s integration with AP’s ENPS allows large organizations to collect assignments created in ENPS, as well as update existing assignments in ENPS with files uploaded from Latakoo. The company says integration of these two platforms “means assignments can be easily matched with video files delivered by Latakoo — making tracking stories and their related files, efficient and intuitive.”

The coronavirus pandemic forced television news operations to produce almost entirely from producers’ and anchors’ homes. During a TVNewsCheck Working Lunch Webinar, set for May 28 at 1 p.m. ET, leading television engineering and operations executives will talk about what they’ve learned while facilitating this massive shift in workflow and the long-term changes likely to flow from it. Above, l-r: Speakers Richard Friedel, Fox Television Stations; Clint Moore, Gray Television; and Robert Lydick, Tegna Media.

News organizations are increasingly using breakthroughs in technology to allow journalists to remotely, yet quickly, deliver more content over multiple platforms. The advances range from improved cellular networks that speed transmission of content from the field to the newsroom and cameras capable of streaming and providing remote video, to a host of tools available for journalists to remotely edit and produce content while collaborating with their newsrooms. Above, Grass Valley’s new GV Alyve, released at this year’s IBC Show, gives reporters a “virtual control room in the cloud” for production and distribution of video and livestream content. (Source: Grass Valley)

Experts say the broadcast industry’s transition to IP infrastructure is likely to dominate this year’s show in Amsterdam. But there’s still plenty of room for developments in the cloud, artificial intelligence, OTT, cybersecurity and more to keep technologists busy on both the show floor and in its conference rooms.

For more IBC 2019 coverage, click here.