Asia-Pacific Broadcasting (APB) BroadcastAsia2016 Show Daily - Day 1 | Page 22

22 BROADCASTASIA2016 SHOWDAILY
22

31 May 2016

Learn the art and technique of creating
award-winning sound design
Can you share some of the key
processes involved in creating
sound tracks for feature films?
Dave Whitehead: I always like to
read the script and make sound
design notes prior to watching
the picture. There are often sound
references in the script that may
not be obvious from watching the
pictures. We will often have a spotting session with the director, to get
a brief on his/her vision for the film.
From there, the supervising
sound editors will decide what
needs to be done and divide the
work among the crew. Usually we
will assess what we have in our
existing sound-effects libraries, but
our modus operandi is mostly to
give an original voice to any project
we work on. Therefore, we record
many new sound effects for every
film — some sounds are harder to
record than others.
What are some of the tips and
tricks you can offer broadcasters in terms of creating the best
audio elements for broadcast
TV content?

Paul
Berriman,
group CTO,
PCCW-HKT
Group, is
presenting
a case study
today at the 4K, Ultra HD
Technology and Beyond
(Track T1) conference
session, which examines
the delivery of linear
TV over broadband,
and the progression
to 4K/8K TV delivery.
Here, he analyses how
Asia is ready for 4K/
UHD and 8K, as well as
the challenges facing
broadcasters.

Sound designer Dave Whitehead has created sound
designs for films such as The Hobbit: The Battle of
the Five Armies, Snowpiercer, Elysium, District 9 and
Chappie. At the Post-Production Hub today and on
Thursday, June 2, Whitehead is sharing his inputs on
the art and techniques of sound design for feature
film. Both sessions will run from 1.45pm-2.45pm.
Here’s a sneak preview of what to expect from
Whitehead’s sessions …
Whitehead: For any production,
the best money you can spend
from the outset is on a great sound
recordist with an experienced
boom operator.
Producers should try to liaise
with these people prior to a shoot
so they know what locations are
being used and what problems
they may face in trying to capture
clean, usable sync sound.
I always ask sound recordists to
please record anything that sounds
unusual on set, that might be hard
for us to re-create in post. It’s also
important for them to try to record
‘buzz tracks’ for unusual or noisy

locations, that is, a recording of the
location ambience to help create
clean sync dialogue track. If sound
editorial can start with a palette
of usable sound effects and buzz
tracks from day one, the entire
soundtrack always benefits. If the
sound recordists give me good
sound effects, they almost always
end up in the track.
Cloud technology is increasingly
becoming a key component of
post production. How extensively are you utilising the cloud, and
what other trends do you see
emerging in post production?

Whitehead: One of the most
important developments for someone like myself, who works from
New Zealand on international
productions, is media security ,
particularly for file encryption and
permissions. It’s important that
not only my clients feel safe, but
that I do too. I recently worked on
Denis Villenueves’ latest film, Story
of Your Life. We used Fortiums’
‘Media Seal’ to open our encrypted
pictures. It was a solid system that
seemed to do everything it set
out to do. It was the most secure
system I have seen to date.
Avid ProTools 12.5’s cloud
collaboration functionality has
also got me excited as I work with
overseas sound teams and it may
just open a whole new workflow
for us. On occasions, a session is
sent to me with audio plug-ins I
do not own. The ability to rent or
buy these plug-ins from the Avid
Marketplace on the cloud is also
very handy when opening other
people’s material.
Internet speeds are finally
matching our drive to work on

❝For any production,
the best money you
can spend from the
outset is on a great
sound recordist with
an experienced boom
operator.❞
offshore productions. It’s great to
see the innovative solutions, which
are making the world a smaller
and safer place to do what we do
best, create wonderful films with
wonderful people for all the world
to see.

Is Asia ready for 4K/UHD and 8K delivery?
With many countries in AsiaPacific yet to complete a full
transition to digital TV, how
would you rate the readiness
of broadcasters in the region
to offer 4K/Ultra HD or 8K TV
services?
Paul Berriman: Apart from Japan
for 4K/Ultra HD (UHD) and 8K, and
a couple of countries preparing
for 4K/UHD, nobody else is doing
nearly enough. Even if they were,
content is scarce.
Even so, 4K/UHD is coming.
Initially, it will be full 4K/UHD at
50-60fps on managed networks
and “Netflix-quality” 4K over-thetop (OTT), which is only 25fps and
entirely dependent on local broadband access capabilities, which is
likely to improve as time goes on.

ing to offer these services, both
in terms of technology and considerations such as cost?
Berriman: You need set-top boxes
(STBs) that are 4K/UHD- and
8K-capable, and for OTT/IPTV,
adequate broadband capacity,
bandwidth reach and throughput.
These incur ongoing infrastructure
and investment costs. For digital
terrestrial TV (DTT), cable and
satellite, capacity and bandwidth
particularly may be an issue.
Last but certainly not least,
acquiring sufficient content to
make it worthwhile for operators
to offer 4K/UHD and 8K services.
Video-on-demand (VoD) will probably come first and low latency 4K/
UHD live encoders may delay live
4K/UHD streaming.

What, then, are the main challenges facing broadcasters look-

Through ‘Now One’, PCCW will
be offering a line-up of 4K/UHD

content via IPTV, DTT and OTT
platforms. What is PCCW’s 4K/
UHD strategy and, with the likes
of Netflix expanding its footprint into Asia, is it feasible that
OTT will be the leading platform
for 4K/UHD to be rolled out in
Asia?
Berriman: We are embracing Netflix and other OTT providers into
our ‘Now One’ STB, which supports
both managed and IPTV and OTT
video services and apps. OTT for
4K/UHD will require speeds in
excess of 30Mbps, probably even
40Mbps for high-speed action and
that will require a lot of bandwidth.
Only if this is available will OTT be
the platform for 4K/UHD.
Our plan is to offer various
levels of service for OTT, including
welcoming them freely onto our
box, from offering QoS and carrier billing to full aggregation and

curation of the navigation, search
and recommendation functions
into the full Now TV Experience.
Customers will not need another
box for anything — this is good
for customers who don't want lots
of boxes and for content providers
who don’t want to make so many
variants of their apps for boxes and
smart TVs.
We are working together with
Hong Kong Telecom (HKT) to support full 4K/UHD with the new
hybrid STB, which is currently being rolled out across our customer
base, and will support managed
IPTV, as well as OTT.
Part of the issue for 4K/UHD,
aside from bandwidth, is the rollout cost of STBs. It’s a big investment, but if the telco and media
businesses work hand-in-hand,
there are synergies to be gained in
reducing deployment costs.