IBC 365: How the coronavirus could change the way we make TV
As more media organisations enforce home working, could the spread of the coronavirus hasten the transition to remote production?
While the coronavirus continues to wreak havoc and hysteria across the globe, the epidemic has accelerated the deployment of remote-working software to such an extent that many businesses may never look back.
What has changed in the last few weeks is that working remotely is no longer a work-life balance argument, or a nice-to-have, it is now a question of business continuity, says Daniella Weigner, owner, Cinegy. Crisis is forcing change right now. This is a catalyst. It is also a major opportunity to get change done.
Teleworking and online collaboration has skyrocketed in China with the providers of virtual workspaces like Alibaba's DingTalk, Tencent's WeChat Work and Huawei's teleconference software WeLink, seeing a sudden surge in new users.
As the virus spread outside of China and the ability to travel and meet face-to-face is curtailed, people are using remote platforms to hold meetings, conduct training, even deliver presentations online. Having withdrawn from NAB, AJA will transition all of its planned events, including its annual NAB press conference, to web-based video conferences.
If there are a significant number of cancellations NAB itself could be forced to pull the plug, with show organisers and exhibitors preparing virtual meetings in the event of a no-show.
Shares in the cloud-based video conferencing and collaboration provider Zoom Video Communications have boomed as the outbreak impacts business operations. The company has already added more new active users in two months than it did throughout all of 2019.
This week Google told most of its 8,000 staff in Dublin to work from home explaining that it wants to test its ability to function with staff working remotely. Twitter has followed suit.
Broadcast tech vendors are either unusually reluctant to give their view on the issue or extremely eager to put their point of view across. The difference seems to depend on how genuinely their solutions are, in fact, ready for remote operation.
Base Media Cloud reports a significant uplift in enquiries. The highest number is from larger broadcasters, post-production and production companies we work with who are now looking for full remote working or virtual facility systems, anticipating the potential need for locking down business premises and having staff work remotely, says Ben Foakes, founder and managing director.
We've also seen a lot more enquiries coming in for our automated cloud backup sync and cloud file sharing services - as more and more companies prepare to implement remote working across various regions. We're talking about hundreds of TBs, which is what we've built our platform to handle. Traditional backup and DR solutions are not built for media.
Demand for Quicklink's video call management system has never been higher, according to CEO Richard Rees. It's already used for talk shows, news and even game shows as well as corporate events. There are lots of video conference solutions but we're seeing an increase because we offer a professionally managed environment for broadcast, he says.
As fortune would have it, the firm is about to debut a completely browser-based cloud supported workflow with automated Panasonic PTZ camera and lighting.
A journalist could sit at home and interview someone located elsewhere live to air while a colleague edits the video online (in Adobe Premiere) and in realtime. That edit could be passed to a control room for wider channel distribution. The whole environment is now virtualised. We believe this is the future.
Blackbird claims to offer the only professional video editor available in a browser (it's written in Javascript) meaning that production staff can work from home on Mac or PC - even on bandwidth as low as 2 Mb/s.
We've seen a significant increase in sales enquiries from all over the world in the past few weeks, reports chief executive Ian McDonough, who spoke about Blackbird's suitability for the majority of live and file-based video production workflows. Essentially, Blackbird can be used by anyone, anytime, anywhere and this flexibility is enormously attractive to enterprises looking to drive massive productivity efficiencies through their operations.
As teams become used to de-centralised video production Blackbird anticipates an accelerated adoption of its technology.
Global media network Sohonet reports increased enquiries from new and existing customers, anticipating the restriction of travel and reflecting nervousness about the impact of the Chinese supply chain.
Cinegy says it's long been a proponent of virtualisation and IP. Give your office-based staff a laptop, access to the internet and access to Cinegy software, locally or in the cloud, and they are ready to remotely produce content, remotely playout content; remotely monitor channels, says Weigner. The technological infrastructure is in place - from acquisition to production to distribution, all can be handled remotely and in the cloud.
The crisis may be the catalyst for industry-wide adoption of cloud technologies and virtualising content, Scott Davies
Never.no hasn't seen any direct changes in its users' requirements for cloud-based audience engagement platform Bee-On but says the need for remote production has gathered pace in the last year.
Our clients' and partners' require more integrated solutions that are accessible remotely and enable real-time collaboration - which can mitigate production costs and alleviate the risk of spreading the virus, says CEO Scott Davies. Bee-On is a secure SaaS cloud solution running on AWS and can be accessed anywhere with a
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IBC 365: How the coronavirus could change the way we make TV 
