Interview: Appear CTO Andy Rayner on R&D, security and future growth By Jo Ruddock
Wednesday, July 10, 2024 - 13:59
Print This Story
As Appear celebrates its 20th anniversary, CTO Andy Rayner speaks to Jo Ruddock about the company's R&D priorities, the importance of security and where future growth opportunities may lie.
What trends are you currently seeing when it comes to media processing and content delivery solutions?
Basically, what I call location agnostic or distributed production is really coming of age. That's where the people resources, the equipment resources, don't need to be co-located with where the acquisition event is happening. That's transformational from a workflow perspective for content creators, because it means they can make better use of their people, make better use of their equipment and of all their data facilities, so it's actually a genuine cost saving workflow and enables them to use their talent over more events.
But to do that you need a massive amount of connectivity infrastructure. So, as an example, when you're doing what in the US they call REMIs, where you're actually pulling back every individual video feed from an event, every individual microphone, that's creating more and more demand for connectivity infrastructure to facilitate that.
What we're finding the sweet spot with what we've done, which I think is quite fortuitous for Appear, is that we have an unbelievably high density, low power and small size footprint for that connectivity interfacing that we provide in our platform. And, as people want to do these massive numbers of backhaul, we're in a very sweet spot for that, which gives lots of cost savings, but also from an environmental perspective, it gives massive power and space savings as well.
I think the other trend that goes alongside that in live production, which is a real transformation in the last couple of years, is using public internet connectivity on live production. That's something that was unheard of, but the reality is that if you use the same bandwidth on a public internet connectivity, it'll possibly cost you 1/100th the cost of renting a private leased line. So, if you can actually do that, that's a massive cost transformation.
So some of the technology toolkit we've got within our platforms in new ARQ technology and ALT technology is instrumental in getting public internet to work to the performance level we need for live production. Public internet connectivity is getting better and better natively in its quality anyway, but that alongside the significant cost saving, and then the ARQ capabilities we have in the platform, that's a great story combined for enablement. And I think it does two things. Firstly, it means that people can produce an n-camera event for less cost. It's also an enabler for lower tier sports where a traditional broadcast would be economically unfeasible to actually run and we're now able to do a live multi camera production, something that was completely unviable previously.
We've seen a number of innovations from Appear in the last few years, not least the X Platform. What would you say are your R&D priorities going forward?
We're continuing to enhance the X Platform, so we're doing things like further increasing the density of the unit. We're also introducing new processing capabilities that are required for UHD HD workflows. We're also just starting on the journey of developing some complementary software tools to complement the X Platform. So the X Platform will continue to be our flagship product, but we're now developing a suite of software tools, which are actually going to complement that and allow us to increase our share of the production workflow.
On the density increase we've also just released a 100G interface, significantly upping the bandwidth and that provides even higher levels of aggregation.
What about sustainability is this something your customers are focused on and how can Appear help them on their sustainability journey?
I think there's a limit here on what content producers are being mandated to do, depending on where they are in the world. In Europe, including the UK to a large degree, there is quite a good level of what I will call obligation due to state legislation. I have to say that's not consistent across all parts of the globe. But more and more, we're finding that customers are ending up with contractual obligations on their providers, their suppliers, to be more compliant to sustainability agendas.
And I think the way we've architected our offering actually plays into that spectrum really well because we're focused on lowering power consumption and maximising density. We are right in a very sweet spot and with the product family to actually help our customers meet that need. The other thing is, especially for events based, I mentioned that we're starting to move towards some software infrastructure. While running production capability on compute is not the most power efficient way of doing it, the fact that for events you run on compute, you only spin it up for the period of time when the event's actually running, that's a massive saving and therefore a more sustainable approach.
You're involved with a number of standards bodies. How is that landscape looking when it comes to standardisation in live production?
I think in what I would the call traditional live production world, when we're talking about appliances and equipment on the ground, I think those standards, the 2110 suite and all of the peripheral standards around those, are maturing really well.
I think the place where standards are still needed significantly is in compute because that's relatively immature. There are no what I call proper ope
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
07/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/07/2026
New appointments to Screen Australia board 7 July 2026
The Albanese Labor Government has made new appointments to the Screen Australia board.
Dr Tania Chamber...
07/07/2026
The right team. The right time.' How The Killings at Parrish Station stuck t...
07/07/2026
Berklee College of Music Alum and Faculty Perform at Boston Public Library's...
07/07/2026
Scripps Research scientists train the immune system to make antibodies against numerous HIV strains Preclinical findings mark progress toward a long-sought vacc...
06/07/2026
Long-developed relationships and informal access, three production models, and c...
06/07/2026
The deal follows Lumine's recent acquisition of Synamedia's video-networ...
06/07/2026
This former SportsCenter producer is shaping local-team studio coverage to surro...
06/07/2026
IMS Productions and FOX Sports deployed more than 100 cameras, 32 onboard feeds,...
06/07/2026
Lumine Group Inc. has announced the completion of its acquisition of the Video Network Business from Synamedia. The business will operate as a standalone compan...
06/07/2026
NASCAR has announced a content and commercial partnership with Motorsport Network, a motorsports and automotive media platform, to distribute NASCAR original co...
06/07/2026
Versant Media Group has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Full Swing, a sports technology company, from Bruin Capital and a group of minority investor...
06/07/2026
DAZN has announced global broadcast rights to 3ICE, a professional hockey format featuring three skaters and a goalkeeper per side, with no power plays or offsi...
06/07/2026
Bundle gains 100 new synths & more
Synth Anthology 5 the largest and most feature-packed edition of UVI's hardware synth emulation bundle, bringing toge...
06/07/2026
Available now via free firmware update
MOTU have just announced that three of their popular audio interfaces now boast official Milan Certification. The 16A...
06/07/2026
Rohde & Schwarz completes Hunter Preliminary Design Review for the Integrated Co...
06/07/2026
The R&S IMAGER from Rohde & Schwarz uses millimeter wave imaging to inspect the ...
06/07/2026
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
06/07/2026
Digital Domain Appoints Industry Veteran Patrick Davenport as Executive Vice Pre...
06/07/2026
Gravity Media USA appoints Brittney Boston as Head of Business Development
Brie Clayton July 6, 2026
0 Comments
The strategic new appointment supports...
06/07/2026
Remote Editing Without Cloud Storage in Resolve
Michael Cioni July 6, 2026
0 Comments
This is a step-by-step guide that demonstrates how to setup your...
06/07/2026
Automatic Caption Translation in Adobe Premiere Pro
Colin Smith July 6, 2026
0 Comments
Here I showcase the innovative automatic caption translation f...
06/07/2026
Flavor's First Ever Managing Director Neal Cohen Retires; Longstanding Execu...
06/07/2026
How Adam Rosenwach Pivoted from Music to Medtech Without Missing a Beat What do the rehearsal room and the boardroom have in common? More than you might think...
06/07/2026
Zhongyi Optics unveils the Dreamy Zone T1 FF Cine Lens Series on Indiegogo with ...
06/07/2026
Open source AI has shown how quickly developers can innovate when models, data a...
06/07/2026
Techtel debuts insyght: making ST 2110 media discovery easy
intellisphereinsyght2026
6 July Written By Suzanne Costello
Sydney, Australia - 06 July 2026 T...
06/07/2026
Monday 6 July 2026
Sky agrees to acquire ITV Media & Entertainment, creating a ...
06/07/2026
Fresh from his World Cup heroics with Cabo Verde, Roberto Pico' Lopes will join the RT panel for Argentina v Egypt tomorrow and for the England v Norway q...
06/07/2026
Nations have long invested in domestic infrastructure to advance their economies, protect and use their data, and take advantage of technology opportunities in ...
06/07/2026
Every year, the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML) reveals where thousands of AI researchers have decided to put their work.
This year's ...
06/07/2026
A death can be unsuspicious, but it has to be explained
What happened to Ke...
05/07/2026
We've gone to another level of integrating the graphics into the set architecture' - Zac Fields, SVP, Graphic Technology and Integration, FOX Sports...
05/07/2026
Browser-based and desktop apps available
Digital Sunset Studios have been busy working on an interesting project: a free software tool that provides compute...
04/07/2026
When Canada qualified for the FIFA World Cup 2026, OneSoccer knew this wasn'...
04/07/2026
Celebrates company's 80th anniversary
Rhodes have recently revealed that they will be producing a limited run of electric pianos in celebration of their...
04/07/2026
Blackmagic Design Cameras Empower Youth Broadcasting Program
Brie Clayton July 3, 2026
0 Comments
Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro and Blackmagi...
04/07/2026
iZotope Joins Boris FX
Boris Yamnitsky July 3, 2026
0 Comments
iZotope, the team behind RX and Ozone, is joining Boris FX. A letter from founder Boris...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
03/07/2026
New bundle & three Single Packs
Continuing to expand their already sizeable orchestral collection, VSL's latest release introduces three new Single Pack...
03/07/2026
Venue installs new ATC-equipped control room
LSO St Luke's, a unique music venue that also serves as the home of the London Symphony Orchestra, have rec...
03/07/2026
Caden Pearson appointed new Commissioning Editor for NITV
3 July, 2026
Media releases
National Indigenous Television (NITV) has strengthened its commitment...
03/07/2026
1 February 2023
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany, 1st February 2023: Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software technology for digit...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
Interview: Appear CTO Andy Rayner on R&D, security and future growth By Jo Ruddock 
