6 NEWS & VIEWS

November 2017

by shad hashmi

If you were talking to disruption , as a person , you would want to say : “ Enough ! Stop ! Hold on ! People need to re-charge ! But , like the Energiser bunny , disruption just keeps going and going and going , and overturning and causing chaos as it bangs its indefatigable drum . So , here we are , at the precipice yet again : The transition to IP and to borrow from Bob Dylan , the times , they indeed , are a-changing …

I remember seeing a demo of iTX at BroadcastAsia over a decade ago — one of the first ‘ channel-in-the-box ’ playout solutions from a major automation provider : Omnibus ( now Grass Valley ). I look back and cringe at the doubts my colleagues and I had about this technology : Would , or honestly , could , the platform work ? Broadcasters would never adopt it ! Standalone transmission servers are the only way to reliably play out a channel . Maybe iTX had some utility in disaster recovery or extra redundancy !

A decade later , this technology is mainstream , with all major vendors selling products that play in this space . The ‘ reliable technology ’ of yore is facing extinction .

This transition to IP is similar but facility-wide in scope and does not merely imply that networking technology will become an even larger part of a facility . Without exaggeration , it means an eventual top-to-bottom , end-to-end overhaul . Out with the old : tape , SDI video and VTRs , and in with the new : files , IP-encapsulated video and switches , instead of video routers and commodity IT technology . This transition is unstoppable , and as with the consolidated playout and commoditised IT systems , the cost advantages cannot be ignored .

To be clear , this is not a technology

piece . As any management consultant worth his salt will tell you : it all begins with the people . So , let us delve into the human side of this equation .

Broadcasting operations and engineering were niche disciplines where people entered , went through rigorous training and then spent their careers working in . These niche skills were not transferrable ; hence , scarce . And there was a small community across the world that inhabited this tiny , idyllic ecosystem .

Networking technology is now queueing up for entry . Typical companies used to have an IT department and a broadcast engineering department , but with commodity hardware now ubiquitous in a facility , a broadcast engineer needs to be as skilled in rebuilding servers , anti-virus checks and patching operating systems as they were in looking at video signals in a video monitor . That line in the sand is being erased . With video routers being replaced by Cisco switch fabrics and IP-encapsulated and encoded video originating from the playout server , a successful broadcast engineer is now required to have a high level of proficiency in networking with a new set of skills around configuring and maintaining finely tuned , highly available and fault-tolerant networks . Four years ago when I was running an engineering team , we started a programme to get broadcast engineers CCNA / CCNP-certified

as we saw the writing was on the wall .

The other approach would be to hire generalist IT professionals , with the required skills , and put them through a training programme to get them proficient with broadcast engineering .

Either approach can lead to the desired outcome but neither is easy , fast or cheap .

Another change in this ‘ transition to IP ’ has been the migration to tapeless .

Here , tape-based workflows have been replaced by faster-thanreal-time file-based operations . A similar scenario has played out here where traditional dubbing executives or technical ope rators have had to learn a new set of skills around transcoding , wrapping and codecs . This , in itself , is not an impossible task but getting people to admit they are under-skilled and that the skills accumulated over a lifetime are becoming marginalised is a hard , bitter pill to swallow .

The first step , though , has to be awareness and I believe every management team owes it to its staff to run an awareness programme that reaches out to all engineering and operational staff . The technology roadmap has to be laid out and management has to ensure the message has been received loud and clear . Bob Dylan put it best :

Come gather ’ round people Wherever you roam And admit that the waters Around you have grown And accept it that soon You ’ ll be drenched to the bone If your time to you is worth savin ’ Then you better start swimmin ’ or you ’ ll sink like a stone For the times they are a-changin ’*

Once the teams have been shown the vision or maybe the spectre of the

future , it is now their decision . Adapt ? Re-learn ? Once that choice has been made , the next steps involve just two stark options : re-training or an eventual career transition .

To enable change , the industry needs support ! The necessary skills again are hard to find as there are few people who operate effectively in this frontier territory so where can you turn ? Equipment vendors such as Cisco or HP ? That is an option but not an optimal one as our business is not in their sweet spot . The answer lies within our industry . One part of the broadcast sector has been forced to change ahead of the larger industry : the systems integrators ( SI ).

To survive , SIs had to re-invent themselves ahead of the facility operators and that is precisely where broadcasters need to turn . SIs have realised that they have to be a bridge and with this new technology there is a longer term engagement with their clients on the horizon . This IP transition has mandated a deeper interaction even more focused on pre-sales advice — as the clients do not natively speak “ IP ”. Once a solution has been purchased , the training and after-sales support is even more critical as teams are out of their comfort zone .

An interesting white paper to read is the APB / Ideal Systems paper on IP interoperability as that effectively sets the scene for this brave , new world and provides a thought piece for management . ( Download at apb-news . com / e- publication / whitepapers , or at www . idealsys . com .)

The proverbial “ winter is coming ” and it is incumbent that we survey the landscape , lay out the future for our teams and give them the tools to survive in these shifting times .

* The Times They Are A-Changin ’ ( 1964 ), writer : Bob Dylan

Shad Hashmi is VP , Digital Development , Global Market & Operations , BBC Worldwide Asia . He is also an APB Panellist .