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 ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Zero in on one that says yes (and no)
Andy Marken May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Hero image courtesy of Deposit Photos
For content creators the most difficu...
29/05/2026
With InfoComm 2026 just weeks away, NDI is giving attendees plenty of reasons to...
29/05/2026
Reaffirming a partnership that has defined Canadian sports broadcasting since 19...
29/05/2026
Mobile/tablet is No. 2 device for watching TV, suggesting that the sports-production industry needs to take another look at the format
Ring Digital's Sprin...
29/05/2026
Berliner Ensemble, one of Berlin's five major theater companies, has expande...
29/05/2026
Solid State Logic will showcase its new compact, fly-away TCA Tour audio product...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, passed away last month on April 12 ...
29/05/2026
Paramount+ will be the English-language U.S. home for Barclays Women's Super...
29/05/2026
Further strengthening its virtualisation strategy to fully support broadcasters ...
29/05/2026
Swiss broadcaster Canal Alpha has deployed Harmonic's award-winning, software-based XOS Advanced Media Processor to modernize playout operations across cant...
29/05/2026
PTZOptics will showcase a new generation of intelligent video workflows at InfoComm 2026, June 17-19, Las Vegas. Visitors to booth N8227 will see how PTZOptics ...
29/05/2026
Arizona's Family has launched the Arizona's Family Sports (AZFS) streaming app, a new direct-to-consumer destination for live, local sports. The app is ...
29/05/2026
Starting in 2027, DAZN will be the exclusive home of The Canadian Football Leagu...
29/05/2026
Comcast Business has detailed the advanced network infrastructure it has deploye...
29/05/2026
In two-day event, leaders from academia and industry explored solutions to chall...
29/05/2026
The Basketball Tournament (TBT), now entering their 13th year of competition, ha...
29/05/2026
Roku has launched FOX One as a Premium Subscription on The Roku Channel in the U.S. Roku customers can now subscribe to FOX One using their Roku account for liv...
29/05/2026
In its sixth year, the broadcaster's coverage has become a global brand and ...
29/05/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent ratings news and is derived from press re...
29/05/2026
The days are getting longer, the temperatures are rising, and playlists are filling up for the season. With summer around the corner, Spotify's global edito...
29/05/2026
New retro-inspired MPC announced
There are few devices that have gained the status held by Akai Pro's MPC range, and in recent years, the company have s...
29/05/2026
Save up to 30 on acclaimed titles
Following a successful launch at Superbooth 2026, Bjooks have revealed that they will be continuing the Kickstarter campa...
29/05/2026
Binaural monitoring application improved
Genelec have just released an update that brings some powerful new features to their HRTF-based binaural headphone ...
29/05/2026
6 June 2026 at SAE Institute, London, UK
IMSTA FESTA 2026 is almost upon us, with some of the biggest names in pro-audio set to descend upon SAE Institute i...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, died April 12, 2026, at his home in...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Comparing 5 AI Video Enhancers for Restoring Old Video Quality
Kate Luvis May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Digitizing VHS, MiniDV, and other legacy formats doe...
29/05/2026
Studio Hamburg Builds New Post Pipeline with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Workflow replaces a patchwork of legacy tools...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
At the Intersection of Music and Dance, an Epic Collaboration Boston Conservatory musicians and dancers found creative parallels in their recent performance o...
29/05/2026
GLOOKAST LAUNCHES CINNAFILM TACHYON PLUGIN FOR MEDIA PRODUCER AND MEDIA SERVICES
This release first appeared here.
Visit our Tachyon product page or contact...
29/05/2026
May 29 2026, 09:00 (PDT) Dolby and rednote Bring More Immersive Storytelling to...
29/05/2026
Something fundamental has shifted in how people consume media. Audiences aren't abandoning television or radio content; they're just expanding how, wher...
29/05/2026
Youtube exclusive special drops today
Watch now
UKTV today announces another e...
29/05/2026
Back to All News
The Official Trailer of Physical 100 Italy, on Netflix From Se...
29/05/2026
Genelec announces V2.1 for Aural ID binaural headphone monitoring application posted: 29/05/2026
Aural ID 2.1 enhances binaural monitoring for stereo and ...
Interview: Appear CTO Andy Rayner on R&D, security and future growth By Jo Ruddock 
