Episodes
Friday Jun 25, 2021
Friday Jun 25, 2021
Ron Chakraborty, lead executive, major events at BBC Sport talks to Broadcast Tech and Broadcast Sport editor Jake Bickerton about the BBC's new virtual studio at the club, which will be its main presentation space at Wimbledon 2021. He also talks about Covid-19 enforced changes to the broadcaster's camera positions as well as its production setup at Wimbledon, to ensure social distancing of production staff. Chakraborty also covers the BBC's expansion of UHD 4K content from Wimbledon, to cater for increased demand from the public for high-resolution sports.
Tuesday May 25, 2021
How to showcase your sports tech innovations to BT Sport at Innovate 21
Tuesday May 25, 2021
Tuesday May 25, 2021
BT Sport COO, Jamie Hindhaugh and BT Sport director of mobile strategy, Matt Stagg talk to Broadcast Sport editor Jake Bickerton about the broadcaster's Innovate 21 competition.
Innovate 21 is the latest in a series of large-scale competitions run by BT Sport seeking ideas for forward-thinking new sports broadcast experiences. The previous incarnations of Innovate have resulted in BT Sport teaming up with two products – Sceenic (which won the 2018 BT Infinity Lab competition), and Seenit (the winner of the 2016 BT Infinity Lab competition). Sceenic has worked with BT Sport to support last year’s launch of Watch Together on the BT Sport App, and Seenit has enabled fans to send in short video reports and comments from stadia around the country as part of BT Sport’s Premier League Tonight show.
Innovate 21 is looking for entrepreneurs, creatives and start-ups to pitch products and services that will play a significant role in BT Sport’s broadcasts and productions.
Tuesday Apr 27, 2021
How to do 20+ camera live productions in the cloud
Tuesday Apr 27, 2021
Tuesday Apr 27, 2021
Mike Cronk, vice president of advanced technology for Grass Valley talks to Broadcast Tech editor Jake Bickerton about how to make the transition to the cloud as straightforward and cost-effective as possible for media companies.
The bandwidth and technical requirements for media companies has made the move to cloud-based working more challenging than many other industries, and there’s also latency issues that come into play too.
To address these issues, minimise latency, and enable true live cloud production, Grass Valley recently launched a cloud product that’s been specially designed for the production and broadcast industries – the Agile Media Processing Platform (AMPP).
It has also created something it calls the GV Media Universe that is attempting to bring the industry together to work on the next generation of cloud-based services.
Cronk explains all this technology and talks about how it’s been used to enable seamless live high-quality cloud production on 20+ camera events, including the EA Sports FIFA 2021 European qualifiers.
For this event, the camera feeds originated in the UK, the signals were processed in a data centre on the East coast of the US, and the vision mixer was 3,000 miles away in California.
Thursday Jan 21, 2021
David Ross, CEO of Ross Video talks tech innovation during Covid-19
Thursday Jan 21, 2021
Thursday Jan 21, 2021
David Ross, CEO of Ross Video, talks to Broadcast Tech editor Jake Bickerton about how Ross Video has addressed the many challenges of the pandemic.
The Canadian company offers a plethora of products and services in more than 100 countries that are used by television networks, sports teams and stadiums, esports producers, live events and production companies.
A big focus for Ross during Covid-19 has been on its Ross Mobile Production division, which provides OB and studio services, predominantly for sports and esports.
As soon as the pandemic hit, it started utilising robots on-set to reduce the amount of staff required, and created a fully decentralised production environment that enables production/gallery staff to work in isolation from any location, including their homes.
During the podcast, David also talks about the pros and cons of cloud working and his concerns about cloud security, and being able to work at higher resolutions such as 4K UHD in the cloud.
He also covers the fragmentation of content; the growth of esports; the automation of sports production; his predictions for 2021; and how Ross Video chooses which innovations it will focus on and bring to the market.
Wednesday Dec 09, 2020
BT Sport and EE's new Match Day Experience (with Jamie Hindhaugh and Sam Kemp)
Wednesday Dec 09, 2020
Wednesday Dec 09, 2020
Jamie Hindhaugh, COO at BT Sport and Sam Kemp, marketing technology director at EE join Broadcast Tech editor Jake Bickerton to talk about an innovative new set of features on the BT Sport app called the Match Day Experience. It's a collection of complementary tools that enhance live matches with a series of immersive features. These include AR insights and behind-the-scenes stadium tours, a 'Watch Together' function, and a 360-degree 8K pitch view so you can watch a high quality image of the game from any angle of your choice. The real-time AR graphical insights offered by the Match Day Experience include team line-ups and formations; in-game stats and graphics augmented on the pitch; a mini-map tracking the positions of all players for a tactical viewpoint; player names; player speeds; and tracers marking the path of shots.
Tuesday Oct 06, 2020
Tuesday Oct 06, 2020
Broadcast Tech editor Jake Bickerton talks with Daniel New, operations manager, BBC Global News; Byron Wijayawardena, strategic development manager, UK and Ireland, Adobe; and Ben Foakes, founder, Base Media Cloud, about how to create virtualised Adobe editing workstations to enable news editors to work from any location.
Wednesday Sep 30, 2020
Wednesday Sep 30, 2020
BBC Breakfast editor Richard 'Fredi' Frediani has been in his role for a year. And what a year it's been. It's fair to say coping with the pandemic and its impact on the 20 year old BBC show has been a key challenge he wasn't predicting when he took up the role.
The programme is famously built around the red sofa, with guests dropping into the studio each day. With this no longer possible as lockdown hit, the whole look and feel of BBC Breakfast had to change, almost overnight. The changes were sweeping and affected everything going on in front of and behind the camera.
This podcast explains what happened next, and how the show adapted to enable it to continue producing three hours of television every morning. Standing still was not an option, with Zoom, Skype and Facetime suddenly becoming a central part of the production.
The podcast also covers how BBC Breakfast has managed to continue doing outside broadcasts, including the live broadcast of Captain Tom walking his 100th lap, which went out exclusively on BBC Breakfast.
Friday Sep 11, 2020
Friday Sep 11, 2020
This episode of Broadcast Tech Talks is with Greg Rochford, IT manager at Little Dot Studios and Michael Clayton, sales account executive at BASE Media Cloud.
They talk with Broadcast Tech editor Jake Bickerton about how they worked together to transition Little Dot Studios to the cloud. It's a journey that began five years ago, and has paid dividends during lockdown with everyone able to seamlessly work and access all production assets from any location.
Little Dot has 1.4PB of data (and counting) in the cloud on accelerated secure cloud storage. An Iconik smart media management platform plugs into this cloud storage, and when new content is added it's automatically scanned, transcoded and made into proxies, ready for editors to work on.
The setup is discussed during this podcast, as well as why Little Dot Studios still needs a big London office despite the cloud enabling all its staff to work remotely.
Wednesday Sep 02, 2020
Wednesday Sep 02, 2020
Sunset+Vine chairman Jeff Foulser talks to Broadcast Sport editor Jake Bickerton about the sports production company's successful bid to become the host broadcaster of the Commonwealth Games 2022 in Birmingham. Sunset+Vine will produce more than 2,000 hours of coverage from the games; a 12-part documentary series leading up to the games; and coverage of the opening and closing ceremonies. It is also creating a Host Broadcast Training Initiative to give under-represented groups in and around the Birmingham area the opportunity to receive training to work with the Sunset+Vine team on the Commonwealth Games.
Thursday Jul 30, 2020
Thursday Jul 30, 2020
Jigsaw 24 head of audio Matt Ward is joined by pro audio consultant Saxon on this Broadcast Tech Talks recording with Broadcast Tech editor Jake Bickerton. Together, they talk about the current trends in audio post-production, including a rapid move to enable remote audio post-production, including ADR/voiceover recording remotely, and making Dolby Atmos immersive mixes at home. The conversation also covers the cost-saving and practical benefits of network audio in post-production.
Monday Jul 20, 2020
Monday Jul 20, 2020
Formula 1 global head, digital media and licensing, Frank Arthofer talks to Broadcast Sport editor Jake Bickerton about the F1 Virtual GP series, which replaced the real grand prix races during lockdown. It involved 11 x F1 drivers and high-profile celebs racing head-to-head on virtual versions of real F1 grand prix circuits. The series received impressive viewing figures, across digital and linear, and proved a notable success for F1 at a time when real racing wasn't possible. Arthofer talks about the popularity of the series and about F1's future plans for esports, including whether F1 might bring in real-time virtual racing to enable fans to join in live races virtually in an esports environment at home.
Tuesday Jul 14, 2020
Tuesday Jul 14, 2020
Ingrid Silver, partner, Entertainment and Media Industry Group at global law firm Reed Smith, talks to Broadcast Sport editor Jake Bickerton about the 'gradual return' of sports to our screens, following Government guidance that enables different sports and events to resume over the coming months. Silver also discusses the legal side for sports broadcasters and sports federations of the Covid-19 cancellations of sports events during lockdown. The podcast was recorded the day after the Premier League resumed.
Wednesday Jul 08, 2020
Wednesday Jul 08, 2020
Ron Chakraborty, executive editor, major events at BBC Sport talks to Broadcast Sport editor Jake Bickerton about the BBC's plans for Wimbledon 2020 following the cancellation of the tournament due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Rather than live tennis from Wimbledon, the BBC has lined up a varied mix of archive tennis content during what would have been Wimbledon fortnight. It includes three hours of classic archive Wimbledon games each day, followed by a live show in the evening, hosted by Sue Barker at Wimbledon. This again raids the Wimbledon archives to re-run some of the best moments from the tournament. Barker is joined by tennis stars at the BBC pop-up studio at the club, and from around the world through the now ubiquitous wonders of Zoom. As the fortnight progresses, the BBC will show the Top 10 men's and women's finals of all time. It also plans to host interactive quizzes, polls and tennis challenges on the BBC Sport website to encourage fans to take part.
Monday Jun 29, 2020
Monday Jun 29, 2020
Melanie Jones, managing director, Manchester Studios, talks to Broadcast Tech editor Jake Bickerton about her role in bringing fully-equipped high-end TV studios back to Manchester City Centre. Manchester Studios is on the site of the former Granada Studios facility (famously home to many classic LE shows as well as Coronation Street), and is utilising many of the spaces used by productions at Granada Studios. The facility is currently undergoing the complete overhaul and renovation of the former Granada Studios to make the spaces fit for the modern age, complete with an entirely new infrastructure, 4K facilities and plush superstar dressing rooms. In this podcast, Jones talks about how Manchester Studios began by offering drama productions four-waller space in the old Granada Studios building, before setting its sights on TV productions. It opened its first fully kitted-out TV studio space (the 13,000 sq ft 4K Studio 1) at the beginning of June, and now plans to have a full TV studio complex up and running by the end of next year.
Tuesday Jun 23, 2020
Tuesday Jun 23, 2020
Adam Heyhurst is former head of events at the BBC and now heads up the broadcast operations of marketing agency Amplify. While at the BBC he set up the broadcast infrastructure for BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge, which he talks about in detail during this conversation with Broadcast Tech editor Jake Bickerton. His passion for live streaming over pre-recorded content is also covered in this podcast, with Heyhurst presenting numerous compelling reasons why live streaming is the best way forward for many productions. Heyhurst also provides his top tips for creating high quality images while filming subjects at home during lockdown.