鈥淭hey would go to trade shows and see amazing things,鈥� Doyle explains, 鈥渢hen they鈥檇 buy the tech and be disappointed with what actually went to air. They didn鈥檛 realize they didn鈥檛 have the people to fully leverage the systems they鈥檇 bought.鈥� 

Filling a critical gap in broadcast graphics  

Doyle, with a background in computer programming and two decades of experience running design hubs for NBC and Media General, knew that this wasn鈥檛 a technology gap 鈥� it was a talent gap. 鈥淵ou needed people who could manage data, code, and understand control room workflows as well as design graphics. Those people were hard to find.鈥� 

So, in November 2014, he decided to build that team. 鈥淲e launched Rocket Surgery with five people as a specialized agency that could take on the high-end projects nobody else could touch.鈥�  

Enter 九一果冻: A turning point 

Things moved faster than expected from the start. A few months in, 九一果冻 approached Rocket Surgery for help supporting XPression in the U.S. It was a perfect fit. By March 2015, Doyle was in Ottawa with 九一果冻 CEO David Ross. 鈥淲hen David asked if we would consider joining Ross, I said absolutely. I鈥檇 worked with Ross products and technology for a long time and respected their brand and approach. We were on the same page about many things, and I knew it would accelerate everything. Ross had the resources, the sales network, and the global reach that would take us years to build.鈥� 

At NAB Show 2015, the acquisition became official 鈥� and from there, Rocket Surgery鈥檚 trajectory steepened dramatically.  

鈥淚n the first five years, the growth was insane,鈥� Doyle recalls. 鈥淲e went from five to 35 people. From a U.S.-centric team to a global operation. From a handful of high-end projects to hundreds per year. Today, we support more than 700 clients and deliver over 400 projects annually.鈥� 

The catalyst for scale: Major League sports 

Much of that growth has come from major sports and live events coverage. 鈥淪ports is now more than half our business,鈥� he says. 鈥淲orking with incredibly experienced people like Kevin Cottam helped us understand that space early on. It pushed our capabilities to a whole new level.鈥� It also helps that the team comes from broadcast, so delivering to inflexible timelines and high-stakes, high-quality expectations is deeply embedded in their culture. 

Rocket Surgery has since become far more than a creative graphics group. 鈥淕raphics are only about 20% of what we do today,鈥� Doyle notes. 鈥淲hat makes us different is our expertise across broadcast workflows: Control systems, automation, data integration, real-time rendering, and building production workflows 鈥� we鈥檝e brought it all in-house. Clients aren鈥檛 just asking us for graphics. They鈥檙e asking us to architect end-to-end solutions.鈥� 

Disruption as a business model

Disruption isn鈥檛 just a marketing term 鈥� it鈥檚 foundational to Rocket Surgery鈥檚 growth. One of the team鈥檚 defining characteristics is a grounded, practical approach to innovation.  

That practical innovation is Rocket Surgery鈥檚 hallmark and has allowed them to continue disrupting over the years. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 throw ideas at the wall. We solve real production problems under real-world constraints,鈥� Jim notes. 鈥淭imelines are everything. We work backward from the outcome or show date. One of the things that makes us successful here is the box we鈥檙e defined by. Everyone talks about thinking outside the box. I always tell people: define your box 鈥� then create. Know what success looks like, know your constraints, and build within that. That鈥檚 where the real innovation happens.鈥� 

 鈥淲e鈥檝e entered spaces that were monopolized for years and forced positive change. The scorebug space is one example. We鈥檙e offering clients the first viable alternative in a long time.鈥�  

NAB Show 2025 and beyond

There aren鈥檛 many people in live production who do what Rocket Surgery has done repeatedly over the last decade at the level they do it.   

Now, on the eve of Rocket Surgery鈥檚 tenth NAB Show, Doyle reflects on the culture that鈥檚 driven them. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e encouraged to try things. It feels collegiate, collaborative, and open. We鈥檙e here to disrupt, but it鈥檚 not about chaos 鈥� it鈥檚 about creative engineering under pressure. We鈥檝e stayed close to the edge of production. We鈥檙e working side-by-side with clients, solving the problems they face today. That gives us clarity, urgency, and a reason to innovate.鈥� 

Ten years in, Rocket Surgery has stayed true to 九一果冻鈥檚 values, staying fast, fun, innovative, and most importantly, obsessed with getting the best results for their customers. 鈥淲e deliver that by being willing to go further than our competitors,鈥� Jim points out. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 why we鈥檝e become a trusted partner for the world鈥檚 biggest shows, networks, and sports brands over the years.鈥澛犅�

NAB Show 2025

Rocket Surgery demoed several new solutions, including a turnkey scorebug platform, custom fan engagement games (including one built in Unreal Engine for the Pittsburgh Pirates), and a partnership with Arcturus on AI-driven, 3D navigable replay 鈥� possibly redefining how leagues analyze and officiate games.

Arcturus has developed a system that captures and reconstructs multiple video feeds into a broadcast-quality 3D copy of the action, enabling interactive 2D and 3D replays, analysis, and shareable captured moments. 鈥淲e鈥檙e excited to show off what XPression and Voyager can do when you stretch them to their limits,鈥� Doyle beams.

The post Ten Years of Rocket Surgery: Engineering Creative Disruption in Broadcast appeared first on 九一果冻.

Our industry is going through some major changes, both in the way products are created and how we deliver content to audiences around the world. Every day, I see customers pushing the envelope on what can be done in media production, experimenting with flexible cloud-based, remote, and hybrid production models or the聽signal transport technology in which the content is made. These trailblazers drive the industry and our technology forward, and I see that continuing long into the future.

We will continue to see this evolve over the next few years with even more innovation, but what will remain the same is that content is king, and the innovators creating the best content will be leaders in this space for years to come. Many customers are under increasing pressure to produce more content with the same or often fewer resources, both technically and operationally.

This is where I believe we can make a real impact 鈥� helping them get more out of their technology to deliver on those ambitious goals. It is a great opportunity for us as a solution-focused company to help our customers understand how they can get more out of their technology and deliver their ever-changing business outcomes successfully. Our focus as a company must be to stay as agile and innovative as possible to support our customers wherever they want to go.

And if any group can do that, it’s the people at 九一果冻. I have admired Ross鈥檚 culture and innovative spirit for many years, and having the opportunity to work alongside what I consider to be the best in the business is extremely exciting for me.

To learn more about how 九一果冻 can help you meet your production goals, or book a meeting with our sales team using this contact form here.

The post Jeff Smith: Pushing the Envelope in Broadcast Tech appeared first on 九一果冻.

As I step into the role of Director of Sales for Canada and Eastern USA, I鈥檓 thrilled by the opportunities ahead in the broadcast and live production space.

Media consumption has never been higher than it is today. Even as the platforms where we consume content evolve, the demand for live production remains as strong as ever.

While News and Sports have always been at the forefront of live production but does not end there. Whether you share a message of worship, education, or corporate communications, our solutions can make sharing these messages more creative and efficient, helping you reach audiences in impactful ways.

This trend鈥攂ranching into new markets鈥攊s one of the most significant developments in our industry. It鈥檚 essential to keep an open mind about what constitutes our client base. Together with our business partners, we鈥檙e continually growing and redefining who we serve, expanding beyond traditional broadcast boundaries.

Of course, one of the biggest challenges our clients in any industry face is navigating an ever-changing landscape of technology. With so many choices, clients often face difficult decisions, whether looking for cost improvements, future-proofing, or better functionality.

We鈥檙e closely listening to these needs and offer a wide range of options through our product lines and hyperconverged technologies, which allow us to grow and evolve with our clients as they decide what鈥檚 best now and in the future.

Over my 12 years at 九一果冻, I’ve had the chance to collaborate with a broad spectrum of clients, from major Canadian broadcasters to corporate clients, sports venues, and even a Physics Think Tank. The diversity of these projects shows the range of possibilities in this field, and it鈥檚 an exciting time to support customers as they explore new directions and expand into spaces that might not have traditionally embraced live production.

Taking the next step in my career with 九一果冻 is extremely exciting. 九一果冻 is made of groups and teams with a common goal: Customer Success. This is emulated throughout the Canada and USA East Sales Team, and I look forward to helping this team accelerate to the next level!

The post Don Hewitt: Expanding Horizons in Live Production appeared first on 九一果冻.

In honor of our golden anniversary, we鈥檝e created a special video that delves into the origins and evolution of 九一果冻, providing a rare glimpse into the origins of 九一果冻, the journey of our founder, John Ross, and his son, our current CEO, David Ross.

Watch the short film below:

This is not just a story about a company. It鈥檚 a story about the people behind 九一果冻, and a testament to their innovation and resilience, which has driven 九一果冻 since its inception. 

In a series of candid reflections, John Ross shares the challenges and triumphs he encountered building 九一果冻 into the company it is today.  

From tinkering with radio parts and constructing his first special effects generator inspired by the Jackie Gleason Show to the daunting task of starting a company with little more than a deep knowledge of the industry, and old plane, and a profound desire to innovate.  

We invite all our customers, partners, and fans to watch this inspiring video. Whether you鈥檙e a long-time follower of 九一果冻 or new to our community, this video offers valuable insights into the heart of our company: The people of 九一果冻. 

The post Celebrating 50 Years of Innovation: The History of 九一果冻聽 appeared first on 九一果冻.

At 九一果冻, we’ve always believed that innovation and environmental responsibility go hand in hand. Observing the effects of climate change, our CEO, David Ross, realized that we have a unique opportunity to make a difference. This realization led us to embark on a journey (14 years ago!) towards significantly reducing our environmental footprint, even though we understand that the return on this investment will take years to materialize. 

Our Vision for Sustainability: 

Our dedication to environmental stewardship is shaping the future of 九一果冻. “On one hand, being green may seem unrelated to our products and services’ functional superiority,” David Ross shared in a recent conversation with . “However, our customers and employees are increasingly concerned about the planet’s future. Long term, we believe that being environmentally responsible is a strategic choice that will differentiate us in the market.” 

Strategic Initiatives in Sustainable Manufacturing: 

Our facility in Iroquois, Ontario, is a testament to our commitment. Our facility is on track to achieve Net Zero Carbon before 2025 after several upgrades including: 

• A highly efficient building envelope. 
• Heat pumps in place of fossil fuel-reliant equipment. 
• Energy-efficient LED lighting. 
• 191 kW of rooftop solar energy generation. 
• 16 EV charging stations for our staff. 
• Low solid content, salt-based solder flux significantly reduces manufacturing emissions 

Jeff Poapst, our Chief Manufacturing Officer, highlighted these efforts, “We have a key role as a leader in our industry and the local community to demonstrate what can be done to help lessen our environmental impact, and protect future generations from the damaging effects of greenhouse gases.” 

Waste Reduction Initiatives  

Emissions are only one element of our environmental impact. Reducing waste is also an important step towards sustainability. To limit the amount of non-renewable waste we produce, we use primarily recyclable packaging with all our products.  

We’ve taken a practical approach to minimizing waste by looking for opportunities to integrate low-waste processes throughout our operations. This includes using no clean solder paste and flux, which eliminates the need for water in the soldering process, and we’ve adopted a closed-loop ultrasonic stencil cleaning process, ensuring that our water usage is restricted to essential services such as washrooms and lunchrooms. And we鈥檝e limited single-use plastics in the plant with a view to eliminating them completely over the coming years.  

On the product side, our hyperconverged solutions require fewer raw materials by design, meaning they generate less waste at the end of their life. The extended lifespan of our products through modularity and software upgradability also helps to reduce waste created from discontinuation, and our emphasis on design for disassembly maximizes the reclaimability of the materials at the end of their life. 

Innovating Products for a Greener Impact: 

At 九一果冻, innovation is at the core of what we do. Our R&D team in Ottawa is committed to designing products that meet our customers’ needs and contribute to a sustainable future. Our Hyperconverged Platform, Ultrix, is the perfect example.  

We considered sustainability from the very first stages of its design, considering the value chain from both ends: We wanted to create a product from materials we could source as sustainably as possible 鈥� and we wanted to design a product with a minimal environmental footprint over its lifetime.  

The Ultrix does this by merging production components into a single, modular, software-enhanced platform, offering “big production capabilities in a compact package.” This “hyperconverged” approach means Ultrix can replace multiple large pieces of equipment, reducing the energy required to power and ship it initially and for the rest of the product’s life.  

This hyperconverged approach is an entirely new approach to building video production infrastructure and is quickly seeing adoption across the industry.

Cultivating a Culture of Sustainability: 

Our journey towards sustainability is deeply embedded in our company culture.

It began over 15 years ago with the initiative of a former employee, Peter Breedyk, who pushed for sustainable practices like eliminating lead solder and finding greener packaging solutions.

“It was the beginning of the company’s current philosophy of diversity and sustainability,” Poapst noted. Our internal policies guide our daily operations, emphasizing reusable and recyclable goods and local sourcing and encouraging our staff to embody these principles. 

Looking Ahead: 

As 九一果冻 nears its 50th year of operation, our commitment to sustainability has helped us reduce our carbon footprint and solidified our identity as a leader in the community and the broadcasting industry. “As a leading local employer and a member of the broader broadcast community, we have an outsized influence on society,” said Poapst, underscoring our role in driving industry-wide change. 

Our journey towards a more sustainable future is ongoing, and we’re proud to be at the forefront of this critical movement in our industry. By combining capitalism with social responsibility, we’re setting a new standard for sustainability in the video technology sector. 

The post Broadcasting a Greener Tomorrow: Our Sustainable Practices聽 appeared first on 九一果冻.

If you missed it, you can to watch the full session on-demand.

Session Highlights

Twomey kicked off the session with an update to the XPression GO! portable system. In XPression v11.0, Ross is excited to announce XPression GO2!, which enables users to create and output up to two channels of 1080p content. Users who were previously using a single channel of XPression in the GO! workflow can now upgrade to the XPression GO2! platform to get access to two channels of graphics in a portable configuration.

Next, Twomey went over some text enhancements, which include the ability to add superscript, subscript, and underlining to text within XPression. He also introduced improved functionality for the XPression NLE plug-in, which now allows users with multiple XPression Gateways to select which one they鈥檙e connected to. With this new feature, users can now collaborate with users from multiple stations more easily.

Twomey rounded out the session with one of the major updates included in XPression v11.0: the ability for users to create and play UHD content on all XPression software. Customers used to have to purchase the Flex edition of XPression software to create UHD content, but XPression v11.0 enables UHD outputs on capable hardware, even with a Single Channel Edition license.

All editions of XPression Studio, BlueBox, Prime, and even Clips, now allow users to generate UHD content. This upgrade is for new purchases of XPression software and hardware 鈥� customers who have already purchased Flex editions of XPression to get UHD outputs can reach out to their 九一果冻 sales professional to discuss license options in their next software renewals.

Other updates that Twomey touched on throughout the session included:

• The ability to decode EPOCH Time into traditional timestamps

• A 鈥淧ublished Value鈥� Visual Logic property for text objects

• A transfer status window added to XPression Project Server Manager

• A new feature allowing users to duplicate XPression Take Items

• The ability to move and re-order Clips content in the XPression Remote Sequencer

• New functionality for Remote Sequencer which allows users to export the running order as a CSV file

At the end of the session, Twomey also announced that 九一果冻 XPression U video tutorial content is now available on and . Ross University is our online library of tutorial videos, and the XPression U section of the site has over 300 unique videos broken out into different categories to make things easier to find. With these videos now available on the go, users can now download them and keep them readily available on their mobile devices. Subscribe today and get notified whenever new tutorials are available.

Learn More

For more information on XPression, click here to visit our product page.

If you missed the Tech Talk, you can to watch the full event on-demand.

The post Tech Talk Recap: XPression v11.0 appeared first on 九一果冻.

The Tech Talk was hosted by Manesh Patel, 九一果冻鈥檚 Manager of Product Management & Business Development for Virtual Graphics, and Hall Hutchison, Senior Product Specialist for Virtual Graphics. They were also joined by Chris Mollomo, Business Development Manager for Virtual Product Solutions, as he interviewed guests from Epic Games and Red Bull Media for a deeper dive into the current and future applications of XR Virtual LED Studio.

If you missed it, you can to watch the full session on-demand.

Session Highlights

To kick off the Tech Talk, Manesh Patel started by giving an overview of the differences between augmented reality, virtual sets, XR Virtual LED Studio, and XR+. He indicated that the focus of the session would specifically be on the latter two, and he moved into an overview of how those technologies work. He then introduced 九一果冻鈥檚 Voyager rendering engine and explained how it integrates with the rest of the Ross ecosystem of products and solutions.

Next, Patel passed things over to Chris Mollomo, who was joined by Bernt Johannessen and Sevan Dalkian from Epic Games, which develops the Unreal engine that Voyager uses to render graphics. The three discussed Epic鈥檚 nDisplay technology, which allows users to run multiple Voyager engines with a single project spread across multiple displays. This opens many new creative possibilities, especially in the XR Virtual LED Studio world. Among other things, Johannessen and Dalkian outlined the technology behind nDisplay and some of the key challenges and improvements necessary for nDisplay to become more widely accepted and used by the broadcast community. They also discussed potential future applications for nDisplay and virtual LEDs in other industries.

Following that discussion, Mollomo threw things back to Patel and Hall Hutchison, and the two introduced the Lucid Studio control platform, which has three main functions. The first function, calibration, allows Lucid to be used to define tracking protocols, mounting systems, setup CCD centering and offsets, and very importantly, define lenses and tweak lens curves. The second function is pre-production, which is where the user prepares all the 3D objects that will become part of the show. These objects can be placed, scaled, positioned, and animated.

The other aspect of pre-production is where the user creates and manages events. The third function that Lucid provides is probably the most important: on-air control. This is when operators need to have all the controls at their fingertips, and Lucid ensures that even complex operations can be achieved with one button click. The two then demonstrated the level of integration with third-party control interfaces but emphasized that Lucid can also be the central hub of the production in and of itself, thanks to its deep integration with the Ross ecosystem.

To round out the session, Mollomo returned to discuss a real-world deployment of XR Virtual LED Studio technology with Philipp Stoegner from RedBull Media. RedBull was seeking a solution that would allow them to integrate Augmented Reality and XR Virtual LED Studio into their portfolio and selected Ross Voyager and Lucid Studio. Stoegner discussed the rationale behind the selection by explaining what the team was looking for when evaluating products, listed some of the key challenges they encountered during the process, and revealed the lessons they learned when solving these challenges. He ended things off by offering some valuable advice to those watching who were considering investing in extended reality.

Learn More

With a proven end-to-end solution, an engine that is future-proof and powerful, and a workflow that makes it easy to deploy XR Virtual LED Studio applications, 九一果冻 has everything you need to help wow your audience while keeping your operations efficient and straightforward.

For more information on Voyager you can click here.

For more information on Lucid Studio you can click here.

If you missed the Tech Talk, you can to watch the full event on-demand, and be sure to visit rossvideo.com/live to stay up to date on all future Ross live virtual programming.

The post Tech Talk Recap: Ross Virtual Solutions 鈥� Creating XR Virtual LED Studio Environments with Voyager and Lucid Studio appeared first on 九一果冻.

In this post, Tom reflects on the evolution of connectivity, the changes that 5G is specifically bringing to broadcasters and reviews the implications for technology providers like 九一果冻.

Reflecting on our journey

People often forget how incredibly quickly we鈥檝e evolved, how connected we are, and I think it鈥檚 worth reminding people about it from time to time .

Circa 1995

I remember back in the 90s when our first modem arrived (I say arrived 鈥� I think we went to a shop and bought it with cash. People did in those days). It was a charming little black box with an actual go-faster-stripe on it. It ran at 14,400 bps and on a good day would propel us along the information superhighway at a blistering 4 kbps per second. Although the creaky copper wiring of suburban Melbourne鈥檚 aging telephone infrastructure kept our modem from realizing its full potential, I still got a Hotmail address. My Geocities page featured a banner saying, 鈥淯nder Construction鈥� with a little icon declaring that this page was 鈥淢ade in Notepad.鈥� It had frames and a garish tessellated background I鈥檇 found on AltaVista. Golden years.

Circa 1998

The upgrade to a 33.6k unit a year or so later was revelatory. I was able to download individual mp3鈥檚 in under 2 hours, provided my connection wasn鈥檛 interrupted by one of mum鈥檚 friends calling for a chat.

Culminating with 5G and the implications to broadcast

Since those early days, we鈥檝e seen ISDN, ADSL, cable and fibre adopted and in parallel 2G, EDGE, 3G, 4G and now 5G. Like most of the world, I鈥檝e long since stopped downloading any of my media 鈥� far easier to just stream it. And it鈥檚 reached the point where I鈥檓 annoyed if I can鈥檛 stream (at least) HD to my phone on a moving train.

So, given the long march of progress what is so particularly significant about this upgrade?

For those in the business of making media, 5G crosses a few thresholds that previous incremental increases in wired and wireless mobile connectivity haven鈥檛.

Three big differences

1 :: Bandwidth vs. Bitrate

While H.265 might be a dog to work with on a multi-track timeline, it it creates beautiful pictures at very low bitrates. While the rasters and frame rates have increased, the bandwidth required for carrying them from place to place has not increased in proportion, thanks to cleverer codecs and the increase in processing power available everywhere to en/de-code them.

The big leap in available bandwidth when moving from 4G to 5G means that the bandwidth available now comfortably exceeds the bitrates we use for most media acquisition tasks. The implication of this is that we can now choose between streaming, or chunk-uploading as growing files directly to where that media is needed without workarounds like proxies: we could even arrive in a place where the media recorded on the camera is simply a backup and ingest becomes totally transparent.

2 :: Acquisition by Anyone, Anywhere

Moore鈥檚 law has also been beavering away on the devices in people鈥檚 pockets 鈥� notably the cameras. Now that mobile phone cameras have gone beyond the point of being 鈥済ood enough鈥� for a lot of tasks, people are using phone cameras and creating good results.

We can certainly have a long discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of shooting media for professional output on phones instead of dedicated cameras, but that鈥檚 not going to stop people from using them for content acquisition. Mobile journalism has had its own annual conference for several years now and several documentaries and even the occasional feature film have been shot on phones.
While phones are most significant, the armada of other cameras are also connected devices these days 鈥� everything from traditional 2/3鈥� ENG cameras to GoPros. Not only are almost all devices capable of uploading what they鈥檝e shot, but there are a lot more of them out there.

3 :: Interacting with Everything

When the coronavirus pandemic forced the adoption of working from home, content creators and networks adapted quickly and many executive mindsets changed overnight. This changed the expectation that we need reliable wired connections, which may start to be ignored as people return to hotels and airports to be where the action is.

When those remote content creators start using 5G to have useful and painless interactions with media at a distance, we鈥檙e going to see an explosion of possibilities.

The implications for Ross and the middle of the workflow

At Ross we don鈥檛 do ENG cameras or phones, so you might be wondering why I鈥檓 writing this at all. We do believe these changes are going to have a massive impact on the other parts of our portfolio and the corresponding workflow:

• NRCS | Inception
• Automation | OverDrive
• MAM/PAM | Primestream & Streamline
• Ingest and playout | Media IO/Tria
• Graphics | XPression & Piero
•  鈥� and more.

That means we need to consider how the pressures on these systems are likely to change and what we can do to help, optimize and improve these areas so that people using them continue to find it easy to justify our place in their workflows.

Incoming Media!

Perhaps the most obvious outcome of all this is that there will be far more media coming in, faster, from more devices, in more codecs.

Once upon a simpler time, a news crew would be dispatched to a location, return with some fanfare, and insert a Digibeta tape into a rectangular hole. The clips would then appear in the system and the 鈥渨orkflow鈥� could begin. It was all in the same codec, it only went to one linear destination and then the tape was put on a shelf.

The requirement to generate proxies in the field for urgent submission has disappeared. Most clips can be uploaded faster than they can be shot, in the original resolution, and it no longer makes sense to ingest locally to a laptop, make selections and then upload. It鈥檚 far better, and now possible, to just upload everything all the time and make decisions afterwards.

Here鈥檚 some scenarios that we鈥檙e expecting:

• Same Crew, Different Content. For a particular event, several crews are capturing content. Many with phones, some with ENG cameras and one person with a drone they bought off eBay.
• Crowd Submissions. The general public are sharing videos on social media. Most of these are unusable bilge but some of them are genuine news you need to use, from stories you couldn鈥檛 get a crew to.
• Extended Remote Journalism. Your journalists who are working on investigative pieces have been in the field for weeks and are constantly submitting content.

All of these have connected devices and clips are just鈥�. arriving. As they鈥檙e shot. This is in some ways ideal: resources are available to whoever needs them almost as soon as they exist. Time from acquisition to broadcast can be massively reduced. Since your MAM is now in the cloud, staff on site, equipment on site and the amount you spend on infrastructure have all been massively reduced.

So far, so good.

Now what do we do with it?

Suddenly the problem has shifted from getting the content, to dealing with the content you鈥檝e got. Here鈥檚 a quick rundown of the issues that we anticipate broadcasters are going to encounter:

1. How do you make sure the right clips end up in the right place? Given the disparate and unpredictable sources, times and locations?
2. How do you ensure quality is maintained? Both technically and editorially?
3. How do you manage the fact that every codec from H.265 at 120p 8K to some 2:3 drone footage in a codec nobody鈥檚 ever heard of (in 27.43fps) turns up.
4. How do you rationalize the metadata, given that every metadata standard is different?
5. How do you link everything across every system? How does an operator using the NRCS know that a resource exists? The MAM team? The graphics team?
6. How do you manage all these issues when the team is spread around the world?

These are just some of the problems that technology vendors like Ross and broadcasters worldwide are looking to solve.

The opportunities

The really exciting part is where we start looking at the other opportunities in these areas:

• Borders between systems blurring. For decades we鈥檝e been looking at tools like NRCSs and MAMs as box-shaped islands connected by arrows in our workflow diagrams. In this new world there will need to be far blurrier borders between systems as their functions overlap, enabled by tools like MOS, APIs and common schemas like NewsMLG2.
• Hyper-converged workflows. Workflows used to have several beginnings. For the journalists it started in the NRCS. For camera operators it started when they hit the record button. For the in-house team it started when a clip arrived. Ideally, we鈥檒l eliminate the arrows completely to create hyper-converged workflows where what can be automated, is automated.

In the sunlit uplands of the future that all happens without any human interaction between the camera operator hitting 鈥渟top,鈥� wherever they might be, and people beginning to work on the footage. In a streaming or chunked-upload scenario the time gap between those two steps could be measured in fractions of seconds.

After all, if the MAM knows what the cameras are doing, the clips would be labelled on the way in. The MAM would know where to put them and who to show them to, they鈥檇 be in the right format and anyone who needed them would be notified and given the right resolution for their needs.

In summary: bring on the future!

In a world with enough bandwidth and coverage to keep everything (including the media assets) connected all the time there is no longer any need for these functions to be viewed separately. They should all just be different views on the same resources, and everyone should be able to interact with the assets they need at the same time, in different ways.

This will allow humans to focus on human tasks: the creation of content engaging to other humans.

A concluding caveat from Ross

We thought it was important to include a quick note to recognize that just because 5G exists, doesn鈥檛 mean that it鈥檚 always available. This post was written as a forward-thinking post, projecting into the future where 5G networks are more readily, if not always, available.

And at time of writing the mobile vendors haven鈥檛 seen fit to provide Tom enough coverage to stretch to the back half of his kitchen. The best wired connection available in his corner of middle-class north-easter Hampshire, under an hour from London in the United Kingdom, is a fibre-to-cabinet affair which is massively over-contended so he only gets 40 mbps down on a good day.
Tom bets that he鈥檒l get 5G long before he gets fibre to his house.

About Tom

Tom has over 15 years of broadcast vendor experience working in technical and strategic roles at industry leaders including Avid, Sony, Glookast and now Ross as Business Development Manager for News Workflow. He has spent the majority of that time in technical roles developing innovative workflows for customers around the world, particularly focused on the optimization of metadata flow and large-scale media management within news environments. For the last 7 years he has been specialized in remote wireless contribution and how it can impact the wider production environment.

Tom is Norwegian/British and has travelled all his life, living in Sudan, Australia, Norway and is now settled near Reading in the UK with his wife and two cats. He enjoys reading, playing guitar and going to the pub. He doesn鈥檛 enjoy running, but he does it anyway.

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If you missed the session, you can to watch the full event on-demand.

Session Highlights

With the release of the latest version of PIERO, the platform now integrates with the Voyager rendering solution for virtual studio, augmented reality, and extended reality applications. Based on the Unreal Engine from Epic Games, Voyager sets new standards for photorealistic graphics rendering, and this latest integration will enable content creators to introduce sports graphics directly into a virtual or augmented studio production.

During the Tech Talk, the PIERO team demonstrated how the new plugin brings PIERO鈥檚 state-of-the-art sports analysis and interactivity to Voyager鈥檚 photorealistic virtual sets. It enables operators to do things like change camera angles, move players on a team line-up, add spotlights or arrows, and if third-party data is available 鈥� heat maps, shots on goal, or passes, for example 鈥� these can be manipulated as well.

Noyer and Hosking first showed this by generating augmented reality versions of heat maps, pass maps, and more on a tabletop version of a soccer pitch. They also showcased how both large and small touchscreens can be integrated and used with the system. Next, the two were joined by Steve Poynter, Lead Software Engineer for PIERO, who demonstrated the platform鈥檚 virtual studio capabilities, and Bradley Wasilition, Business Development Manager for Sports Graphics, who showed how the Voyager plugin can be used for American Football. Finally, Poynter showed how a large table-sized touchscreen can be used to interact directly with PIERO graphics in Voyager鈥檚 augmented reality mode, and Noyer and Hosking exhibited the ability to display PIERO graphics directly on the studio floor.

This new integration with Voyager and the ability to use sports graphics directly within an AR or VS production environment opens up even more stunning creative possibilities for PIERO鈥檚 users. The PIERO team is proud of the fantastic partnerships they have built with their customers, and they can鈥檛 wait to see all the fantastic things they do with this new update.

Learn More

PIERO is an award-winning sports analysis tool from 九一果冻. PIERO鈥檚 systems use image recognition or encoded camera heads to overlay tactical graphics on sports content. PIERO brings new angles to every game, on the screen and in the studio, with visually engaging and informative effects. To learn more about PIERO, click here to visit our product page.

To watch the 鈥淧IERO + Voyager 鈥� Real-Time Sports Graphics for AR and VS鈥� Tech Talk on-demand, .

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If you missed the session, you can to watch the full event on-demand.

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Session Highlights

X-Series

The Tech Talk started by highlighting the X300 and X350, a pair of compact, quiet and robust pan and tilt heads that are perfect for applications where the quality, flexibility, and performance of a discrete head / camera / lens solution is required. The X-Series heads fit in a wide variety of applications, from meeting rooms and presentations spaces, auditoriums and concert halls, legislatures and houses of worship, to studios and newsrooms 鈥� just about any application where a prompter is not required.

PTZ

Next up, the session showcased the new Ross PTZ-12G and PTZ-NDI, which deliver all of the high-end features of a UHD pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) camera within a reasonable production budget. This 4K/60 camera has 30x optical zoom and is perfect for live broadcasts in houses of worship, corporate board rooms, auditoriums, classrooms, and TV studios. The result is a high-performance PTZ camera that is easier to deploy, integrate, and operate than anything before in its class.

Monogram Creative Console

To round things out, the third new product featured in the session was the Creative Console from Monogram. This modular, configurable USB control surface offers a selection of buttons, knobs, and slider modules to provide the ideal controller for your application. Each module connects instantly to its neighbor via spring-loaded pins, while powerful magnets ensure they stay together without the need for tools or fasteners. Creative Console is available in three pre-configured packages or as individual modules to provide the ideal controller for your application.

Applications in Corporate, Worship, and Legislative Markets

For customers working on corporate, worship, or legislative productions, you might encounter many common challenges: 

• Your spaces can be quite large, making it extra challenging to cover all areas with as few cameras as possible 

• You want to hide the cameras as discreetly as possible within the space
  

• The lighting conditions can be challenging 鈥� some areas might be better lit than others. 

• Your operators want a system that is easy to use
  

• Your system integrator or IT people want an easy to install and maintain system 

• Your management wants the most cost-efficient solution

The most cost-efficient solutions to these challenges are the Ross PTZ cameras. Due to their compact form factor, they fit discreetly in any space. Additionally, all video, audio, control, and power go over one single ethernet cable, simplifying cabling enormously, especially in historic buildings. Furthermore, the 30x optical zoom and 300 deg/sec pan/tilt speed allow you to accurately cover a wide range of shots with stunning video quality.

The X-Series, on the other hand, will shine in more challenging lighting environments. The better sensors, optics, and image processing of discrete cameras deliver visibly superior results over PTZs in low or variable lighting conditions. Still, the compact size and reduced cabling requirements of our X-series simplify the installation. The superior mechanics and advanced MotionDirector software offer the opportunity for added creativity with on-air moves.

For both the PTZ and X-Series, 九一果冻’s DashBoard control system is downloadable for free, and its integration simplifies operation and maintenance significantly. DashBoard offers a no-cost, high-performance platform that is easy to use and control.

Applications in Broadcast and Radio

Even in Broadcast and Radio, the PTZ cameras and X-Series PT heads shine as long as no prompter is needed. These could be PoV cams, short pieces to air, web, radio, or online studios. As long as the lighting conditions are controller, the PTZ cameras offer an unbeatable price and integrate perfectly into the rest of the infrastructure with 12G SDI support.

When standardization throughout the site is required, the X-Series heads allow you to re-use existing cameras and lenses 鈥� even analog lenses. And by choosing the same brand of cameras from the large to the small robotic heads, you get uniform image quality and colorimetry across the board.

Learn More

To learn more about the new products we discussed during this Tech Talk, visit our product pages for the X-Series and the PTZ.

To watch the 鈥淴-Series and PTZ 鈥� Compact and Powerful Remote Camera Solutions鈥� Tech Talk on-demand, .

For more information on 九一果冻鈥檚 robotic camera systems, visit our website.

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