IBC2024, Day Three, September 15-Another busy day

Simon Westland, Marketing Director EMEA, Blackmagic unveiled the URSA Cine 12K at IBC2024.

With IBC at the global crossroads of the media, entertainment, and technology industries, Day Three was another real busy day.

Three technical papers were presented.
AI in Production—training and targeting. The EBU described a facial recognition machine learning system tailored to the specific needs of media documentalists. It seeks to identify only active and not incidental characters, assisting in compliance with privacy regulations.

The second paper, Multi-Label Indexing Technology for News with AI-based Text Processing from NHK, presented a solution to the over-training problem when applying machine learning to multi-label indexing news items. This is especially important for infrequently classified events. The solution provides good performance and has been trialed, but the authors also acknowledge its limitations.

The third and final paper, from Viaccess-Orca, looked to a future where Generative AI adapts advertising based on characteristics/beliefs gleaned from the target. Used in a closed loop, the Generative AI can test, score, and adapt the media to maximize its impact.

IBC2024 Accelerator Project–IP networks, Finding the needle in the haystack
As broadcasters transition from traditional hardware to IP and cloud-based systems, they face the daunting task of managing tens of thousands of IP senders, receivers, and nodes, each identified by complex numerical codes. This complexity makes it difficult for operators to locate and manage these devices, leading to increased operational costs, inefficiencies, and sustainability issues. This challenge is compounded by the lack of standardized solutions, with many broadcasters relying on ad-hoc, vendor-specific workarounds that are neither scalable nor reliable.

Peter Brightwell, Research Engineer at the BBC and one of the leaders of the project, spoke of the complexities faced in this new environment. “Many broadcasters are now planning or building IP and cloud-based facilities, where previously they would have used dedicated video and audio connectivity and routers,” he said. “This promises great flexibility and scalability for future operations. But it also brings challenges of identifying devices, senders, receivers, and other resources. Technical operators might be presented with screens of cryptic identifiers, and if it’s difficult for them to find what they need, businesses won’t be able to respond to change quickly and there is also the danger that equipment will be left on when unused because of worries that it can’t be found again easily, with consequent sustainability implications.”

Polly Hickling, the Learning and Development Lead at Eviden, and another project leader, described how actual industry demand has driven the creation of this Accelerator project: “When it comes to sustainability and confidence in systems, our data gathering from those involved in the accelerator and beyond, has shown us that there is the significant daily impact for broadcasters when updating, managing or maintaining complex systems, with one contributor saying the length of time it takes to identify and label an unmanageable and time-consuming process for already time-limited teams.”

The Challenge
The project team will now gather data from across the industry to establish current obstacles and utilize it to test and implement solutions incorporating IS 13, and dynamic routing for orchestrated infrastructure will then take place. A collaborative group will include key broadcasters and industry standards movements such as the Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA), who will work together towards an accelerated approach to this industry challenge.

The POC objectives are defined as:

• Understand the identification challenges with large networked media devices in broadcast facilities.
• Assess NMOS “resource labelling” specifications (BCP-002-02 and IS-13) and for tackling these challenges.
• Assess current implementations and encourage new ones.
• Demonstrate the scale of the benefits of the approach.

Project goals
The primary goal of this Accelerator Project is to simplify and standardize the management of IP resources within broadcast networks. As the broadcast industry increasingly adopts IP-based infrastructures, the complexity of these systems has grown exponentially. This project aims to streamline identifying and managing these IP resources, making them easier to locate, manage, and maintain. By developing and implementing the AMWA IS-13 NMOS Annotation Specification and BCP-002-02 NMOS Asset Distinguishing Information, the project seeks to reduce operational burdens, improve efficiency, and enhance the sustainability of broadcasting operations.

Unique approach and technological integration
This project is unique in its collaborative and standardised approach to solving the IP identity crisis. Unlike other solutions that rely on fragmented, vendor-specific methods, this initiative aims to create a unified, industry-wide standard for IP resource management. By extending the existing NMOS specifications, particularly the AMWA IS-13 NMOS Annotation Specification, the project offers a consistent and scalable method for labelling and tagging IP resources. This standardisation is critical for reducing complexity and ensuring broadcasters can manage their networks efficiently and sustainably.

Brightwell explains the reasoning behind this approach: “There are lots of individual ‘workarounds’ happening in facilities to provide human-friendly information about resources, but these are ‘brittle’ and vendor-specific,” he says. “We believe there is a need for a common approach. AMWA IS-04 and IS-05 (NMOS Discovery & Registration and Connection Management) are becoming an important part of new IP builds, and extending NMOS to provide such information should not be difficult. The new BCP-002-02 NMOS Asset Distinguishing Information combined with a new proposal IS-13 NMOS Annotation Specification do this, so the challenge is about getting them adopted.”

The project’s emphasis on real-world testing and hands-on workshops further sets it apart, as it seeks to validate these standards in actual broadcast environments before promoting them for broader industry adoption. Hickling highlights the collaborative nature of the project: “Feedback from our contributors highlights the real need for formal consistency around this process, workarounds are not what is wanted by those implementing and incompatibility issues create challenges. It has been clear to me for a long time that the solutions that really help always work best when everyone facing them feels listened to. That’s really what we’ve been trying to do here – collaborate with all the relevant parties as much as possible.”

Implementing and solving the IP identity crisis requires a combination of specialist technologies, resources, and expertise. At the core of the solution are the NMOS specifications, specifically the AMWA IS-13 NMOS Annotation Specification and BCP-002-02 NMOS Asset Distinguishing Information. These specifications provide the technical foundation for labelling and managing IP resources in a standardised manner.

In addition to these technologies, the project relies on the expertise of a diverse group of industry stakeholders. These include broadcasters who provide insights into the practical challenges of managing IP networks, vendors who integrate the NMOS specifications into their products, and system integrators who ensure that the solutions are implemented effectively across different environments.

The project also leverages resources from leading industry organisations, such as the BBC, EBU, dB Broadcast, and IMG, which contribute knowledge and experience to the initiative. These collaborations are essential for ensuring that the solutions developed are technically sound and practically viable.

Brightwell emphasises the importance of these contributions: “The accelerator is using specifications and implementations being developed within the AMWA NMOS community and available as open source. “The challenge is for vendors to incorporate these in their NMOS solutions and system integrators and broadcasters to adopt them.”

Stressing the project’s desire to create something that meets the needs of the industry, Hickling adds: “With this in mind, our exploration of how we can address this is taking into consideration all the feedback we have gathered in a hope to come up with a process that doesn’t add to the already short time scales those we have spoken with have,” she says.

Blackmagic unveiled high-end URSA Cine 12K at the Show
Boasting a new generation of image sensor, a body with industry-standard features and connections, and integration into high-end workflows, the URSA Cine 12K is also designed for total integration into postproduction workflows to encourage efficient and collaborative teamwork.

Simon Westland, Marketing Director EMEA, Blackmagic, said: “The camera records both the Blackmagic RAW files and H.264 proxies at the same time, which means the user can send a choice of either just the proxies or both the proxies and the camera originals to the cloud. Those files arrive directly in a DaVinci Resolve project, which means that editors can work on those files immediately.”

Despite 8TB of built-in storage, the URSA Cine 12K also includes high-speed networking for media upload and syncing to Blackmagic Cloud over Wi-Fi, a 10G Ethernet connection, or even a cell phone.

Day Four is the finale. This is the last chance to shine and soak up knowledge, discover never-seen-before innovations, and round off more lasting connections. With the Conference program already wrapped up, Monday is an excellent opportunity to explore everything else the show floor and stages have to offer. Last but not least is the brand new IBC Talent Programme.
BCS Bureau