SEPTEMBER 2014 Vol 206

Media Technology Pacific Conference – Auckland, July 2014

hand, there were ideas put forward that offered clearinsights into what might lie in our media future. Thevalue in having it all presented together was thatcommon threads emerged and fanciful projectionsbecame obvious in their isolation. I have witnesseddrama in media conferences verging on name calling but,in this instance, although there were differing viewsoffered, there was a great sense of co-operation andunderstanding expressed at all times.

Right, that's enough introduction, now for the reporting –and I beg your indulgence as I attempt one of my seldom

I must say right at the start that I was more than a bitsceptical that this conference was going to be centredaround industry insiders telling each other what theyalready knew and that it would reveal nothing that was ofmoment or interest to our readership in the productionand post production industry in New Zealand. Well, Iwas very wrong and I hope that I do some justice to theimportant information presented to the conference by mycoverage here.

The content was varied and included some that was sotechnical that I let it wash over me but, on the other

The Panel: Sam Irvine (Freeview), Trevor Bird (Seven West Media), Paul Spain (NZ Tech Podcast),Khush Kundi (Ericsson) and Gerry Smith at the podium.

those might not have bothered because they were

accessing material online. He then went on to talk about

content providers having more challenges; that New

Zealand is above the average in terms of broadband

rollout and we are within the top 10 countries in the

OECD in terms of wireless coverage. He stated that his

obligation is to make it possible that New Zealanders can

access the new forms of distribution.

One of the issues the government will face is online

funding issues, because he’s also the Minister for NewZealand On Air.

There are issues of quality and censorship that, in the

online world, are quite different from broadcasting. He

stated that the government has provided a budget to

transfer about half a million hours of TVNZ material to

the Film Archives, so we are preserving our television

history unconnected to TVNZ. He finished off by saying

that there are lots of new challenges and opportunities

and they’re all in front of us in our industry.

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efforts at real mainstream journalism ( or as close as I'llever get! ) Yes, I'm not giving you two days oftranscription – just my take on the highlights but with acouple of interviews so you don't get the false hope thatI have changed my style. Lastly, my apologies inadvance if I got my notes wrong – check for yourself –I'm still learning. Ed.

Gerry Smith, the conference

host, introduced the con-

ference by saying that this is

New Zealand’s first media

conference for many years.

It’s an exciting industry, one

that’s facing change and there

is a need to adapt and grow

beyond mainstream “free to

air” television. The conference

is themed around this chang-

ing broadcast world and has a

range of presenters giving us

their insights into the media

world of the future.

I counted over 100 attendees

at the 2 day event with the

first presenter the Minister of

Broadcasting, the Honourable

Craig Foss. He began by

talking about the opportunity

that the digital era in New

Zealand offers. He said that

he was more the Minister of

Distribution of Content than of

Broadcasting, because “broad-

casting” was an old term.

Nowadays, with the range of

offers out there, it really is all

about means of distributing

content. The changes that are happening in the industry

are going to happen regardless of what the government

will do.

The NZBC and the structures that were put in place and

the rules that were put in place by the government in

those days are long, long gone.

He stated that the industry is only going to get smarter

and the public now obviously have more choice. They

have the choice to change channels, to go online, or turn

the television off.

He spoke quite a bit about the changeover from

analogue to digital and how there was immense co-

operation within the broadcasting sector group; the

communication to the public was such that 99% knew

that the changeover was going to happen, 98% switched

in time and, for some of those who didn’t, quite a few of

The first industry speaker wasthe Spark Ventures repre-sentative, Mike McMahon,talking about Lightbox. Hebegan with some generalcomments about VOD ( videoon demand ) as opposed tolinear material providers –that there are manyopportunities for broadbandproviders to get into the spaceand still have News, Weather,etc. In terms of Lightbox, theSpark offer is such that it isISP agnostic, so you don’t

have to be a Spark customer to sign up to Lightbox. Instructuring any ISP offer, the monetisation is a majorissue. Another big issue is what infrastructure isnecessary. He did have some kind words to say fornormal television, that the killer app on TV is TV itself,and he came to this conclusion after a whole lot of VODtrials of red buttons and other variables, that people dojust like to sit down in front of a TV and blob out. It isabout entertainment; the entertaining "me" is not quiteas challenging as entertaining "us" – a group. This ismuch easier with linear. When you talk aboutentertaining "them", you’re talking about entertainingchildren, so the ideal presentation is one that canentertain "me, us and them."

Next to speak was PaulSpain from Gorilla Tech-nology and NZ Tech Podcast.I retreated to my interviewingcomfort zone and nabbed himafter his presentation.

Ed: Paul, I’ve got a coupleof questions for you. The firstone – you made the comment“there is a growing segmentfor which current TV is dead.There’s not a lot ofopportunity to monetisethrough vehicles such asYouTube.” So what’s the

future, how can they get the money to pay for thismethod of delivery?

Paul: Well I think that there’s going to be somereduction probably in terms of income throughtraditional types of channels, so I think that was why Italked a little bit about some of what has gone on in themusic industry. Really the bottom has fallen out ofsome parts of that in terms of where the revenue is.What they’ve had to do in that area is recognise thatnow the monetisation actually doesn’t come from themusic product; it comes from live shows andmerchandise and other things. Obviously, it's quitedifferent in a broadcast and a VOD space and I thinkthat with some of these "over the top" services therewill be a push to more fresh local content that peoplewill pay for in some way. There will always be someaudiences that just won’t pay anything, and they’ll getwhatever they can get for free and they’ll work outwhatever they can do to avoid the ads and anythingthat generates any monetisation. I think that’s just theworld that we’re in now – it’s a digital world, there willbe that segment that you can earn very little from.

Ed: So the iTunes model, where you pay perdownload, that doesn’t seem to be the way theproviders are going for the video content?

Paul: No, in fact it’s drying up for iTunes as well. So,Apple have seen that, where they had a window of timewhere they’ve been earning some reasonable moneyand artists have been earning good money on that …that’s drying up now as we move to the equivalent ofthe subscription video on demand, so in the musicspace that’s the Spotify type services and Pandora andso on. Those are really taking over and with those theyreally deliver back to the content creator, the musiciansin that case, sort of "pocket change" for their work. Soit’s not particularly good from a business perspective.

Ed: And it’s not particularly good for keeping thesepeople doing what they’re doing, going forward?

Paul: No – I was at an event a few weeks ago and washearing from some people in the area of filmmaking andthey were talking about a "race to the bottom" in thatarea as well. We’re almost at the stage of becomingsomething like your local amateur theatre where there’ssegments of the film industry operating on the smell ofan oily rag and the people who are participating aredoing it because they’re passionate about it, notbecause they can make a living from it.

Ed: Wow, and I guess the last question here – yousay that people are going to choose the content thatthey want to watch. Now this sort of brings me back towhen broadcasters had a responsibility in the old days;that it was a government run channel and they hadsocial responsibility. There was a balance betweenentertainment, sport and education. It seems to bethat this particular Internet model means that peoplecan just choose pure entertainment?

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TV can be personalised by delivery to personal tablets.The problem with the incumbents in any of thesebroadcast situations is the legacy infrastructure.There’s a lot of legacy capital involved which will holdback their development. In preparing to launchLightbox, the major criterion was that content was king.It was really important to have a high quality catalogue;the interface had to be clean and simple and to thepoint, and had to cater to the whole family with its easeof use. In terms of a payment model, they decided thatsubscription was the most natural to consumers. Hemade a comparison between iTunes and Spotify in themusic world, in that iTunes, on a pay per downloadbasis, is losing ground to Spotify, where you pay onefee and you get as much music as you want. Thechallenge that he put to the Lightbox development crewwas "can we make it two clicks to entertainment?" Thearchitectural philosophy they looked at was that it hadto be Cloud based, and this was for operationalsimplicity. It had to be modular; an end to end solutionis a myth, you need the ability to evolve. Efficiency hadto be such that the content was automated, that it wasdevice independent.

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Paul: Yes, I think you had the broadcaster there beingthe gatekeeper that had that very important role tofulfil in creating that sort of balance and making surethat there was a fair variety of things that wereavailable to the audience. But now, as long as thecontent suits someone, then it’s going to be available insome form digitally – where it’s a small podcast aimedat a niche audience, and I’ve come across people whowill produce a bit of niche content for maybe under 100people, up to obviously big broadcast content that’sseen by millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions,and people will now choose what they want.

Ed: But there you’re talking about people who can

make intelligent choices. It’s sad to say that there’s a

mass out there who don’t make intelligent choices –

just choose continuing episodes of The Kardashians?

Paul: Absolutely, and I guess that’s a sad state of

affairs for where we’re heading potentially in terms ofNews delivery and so on, is that it becomes

personalised and if someone’s got extreme views, in the

future, they can pick and personalise “this is what I

want” and they get a personalised delivery of the TV

News which just shows them what’s of interest to them.

They potentially become more extreme individuals

because of what they consume, and we already see that

today to a fair degree, because there is so much

content that can be consumed from so many differentsources.

Ed: Even the Chinese Government has trouble

regulating what their people see?

Paul: Yes, I think those days of being able to control

what people see – good, bad or otherwise – are virtually

gone.

Go to www.gorillatechnology.com

Julia Allen from HWWAustralia spoke about whymetadata matters.

As television contentproviders, your job is to helppeople make an informedchoice as to what contentthey watch, so you have toget the metadata right. Goodmetadata enhances thecustomer’s experience andthis is done by better datadisplay and ease of access,allowing customers betterchoices. Now I didn’t record a

lot of what Julia Allen said, because it was aboutmetadata and getting your metadata right, but it wascertainly something that the broadcasters and netproviders there took a lot of interest in. This wasemphasised by some later comments that Julia’scompany, HWW, did a fantastic job in cleaning up andrepurposing metadata from overseas productions fortheir particular station … that you have a station, youhave a certain look, but you’re getting content from awhole lot of different providers. They will provide

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metadata but it won’t be in the same look. So basically,you have to take that metadata, strip out the materialthat has come with it and repurpose it to the look ofyour particular station, and HWW seem to do thatparticularly well.

Go to www.hww.com.au

Paul Sheridan from OptusSatellite explained that Optushas been around in NewZealand for quite some time,providing primarily broadcastservices for Sky NZ andFreeview via Kordia and nowexpanding into two waybroadband services withWireless Nation. Delivery bysatellite is, and will continueto be, more cost effective torural and remote areas thanterrestrial delivery, as itenables 100% coverage.

They are looking at launching a new Optus satellite,Optus 10 – it is coming soon and will provide additionalcapacity and resilience to the existing fleet of fivesatellites. Other developments in the satellite industryinclude more efficient coding with the H.265 MPEGencoding and DVB-S2X modulation scheme, whichshould allow 4K or even 8K material to be delivered bysatellite.

Another interesting development with satellitemanufacture, a little bit off the track but still somethingof interest, is electrical propulsion which is used insteadof big rockets putting them up into geosynchronousorbit. The rocket is going to get them to a certainheight and then using this much slower electronpropulsion, will push them up into the orbit where theyneed to be and will keep them there. He explained itwas a little bit like the electron beam in an old cathoderay tube, but you take away the screen and just asteady little beam of electrons will push a satellite veryslowly where they want it to go. The new Optus-10satellite will have electric propulsion for station keeping,allowing Optus to gain experience.

Also on the satellites, there is potential for lower earthorbit satellites; you get much less latency with yourtransmission, but you have to have quite a number ofthem because they move out of range and you have toswitch to another one, and that’s quite a technologychallenge in itself, because the viewer doesn’t want to

Page 8

see any sort of flick in the picture, or loss of picture assatellites change. He explained that this technologywould probably be more of a commercial solution ratherthan a consumer one.

The future challenges for Optus? With the delivery tothe satellite, it makes sense to uplink once and have agood geographical spread in your satellites. He believesthat linear television is still viable in the future, becauseit’s controllable, you can put high quality signalsthrough broadcast television, whereas your nextgeneration online material is virtually uncontrollable asit’s the viewer’s decision, where, when and on whichdevice they view it. He sees potential with the hybridnetworks, such as HbbTV. They can be very intelligent

and he sees, of course, that the future of the industry isin co-operation with satellite providers, such as Optus.

Go to www.optus.com.au

Trevor Bird from Seven WestMedia in Australia gave,probably to my mind, the bestpresentation of the lot.Trevor announced that he’san old time broadcaster andthat Seven Network is in thatilk. They make more contentthan any other broadcaster inAustralia and that is a veryimportant ingredient to theirsuccess. He made thecomment that the appssection of TV receivers doesnot carry all TV broadcasters

content and is dependant on broadcasters andmanufacturers negotiating a deal so not all TVs carry allbroadcasters’ content.

This fragmentation by manufacturers can causecustomer upset as not all content is available if the dealstops, and the content they used to see is no longeravailable. The answer is that broadcasters have toprovide a standards based approach to this broadbandcontent delivery and play the game at a higher levelthan net providers to deliver a broadcast like serviceover broadband links. The difficulty there comes ofcourse when you have the hybrid system which Seven

West Media is trialling, where viewers can moveseamlessly from broadcast delivery to broadbanddelivery and consequently have much greater contentchoice. You turn on your television and you have achoice of broadcast channels or broadband channels orVOD services. In this case, the customer might notaccept a lower quality from the internet deliveredmaterial than they get from the broadcast service. Thechallenge in the industry is for seamless integrationwith free to air broadcast TV and the Internet. Bothhave to be easily useable and the transition betweenthem has to be seamless.

HbbTV is a European hybrid standard and Seven WestMedia is giving the viewers a choice of broadcast

Page 9

television or they can link to an Internet stream byallocating a logical channel number to the URL of thestreaming service. This gives the opportunity to offercontent to a more niche market than could be servicedby broadcast technology.

An example relating to sports broadcasting could allowmultiple courts of a tennis tournament to be streamedso tennis fans could see preliminary rounds or matchesthat would not normally be available to a free to airaudience.

Catch-up television is also available allowing viewers tosee programs they may have missed by simplyaccessing that content through the broadband service.Freeview-plus is the industry service allowing viewers to

see catch-up content from all broadcasters, in onelocation, by simply pressing the green button on theremote control.

Basically your TV display allows an internet browser tooverlay content over normal broadcast TV. One

comment Trevor did make which got a lot of laughs,

was about shopping channels when he said "shopping

channels are a waste of spectrum space, so they are

not mentioned in any of the slides that I am showing

today."

One of the ways the Australian consumer is ahead of us

in New Zealand is that every television set sold inAustralia from now on has HbbTV in it, whether anyone

uses it or not. There is a potential in New Zealand for a

dongle type situation where we can have an external

box or plugin that will allow this, but our TV sets don’t

currently have the ability to take hybrid TV.

The big question that Trevor posed was the potential billshock to Seven West Media if the consumer decides thatInternet is the way they want to view TV, because theyare charged on a pay per viewer basis by the contentdelivery network vendor. The normal broadcast modelis a fixed cost distribution model as the cost oftransmission does not change depending upon howmany people are watching. The opposite is true forinternet delivery. This means the content must bemonetised at a rate higher than the cost of delivery ifthe model is to present a reasonable business model forthe future.

Go to www.sevenwestmedia.com.au

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manufacturers so that Freeview is built in and TV willcontinue to be a "lean back" experience. He stated thathigh value content is required for free to air television,but individual broadcasters might offer "value added"extensions. It is possible of course, to provide freematerial via the Internet at the moment, but the qualitythat the users prefer to experience is currently betterserviced by distribution through satellite or terrestrial.He was the first to talk about the social component tothe television experience … people are gathering towatch and the content has a chance to present society’svalues. He stated that there is quite a high degree ofinertia with television viewers that tends to support thecurrent model. In other words, people don’t likechange. However, we must continue being free to viewand to improve or eventually we’ll be rolled over. Hethen went on to talk about the difference betweenFreeview in New Zealand and Freeview in Australia. Hesaid that, in New Zealand, we had a burning platform tocontend with. Sky Television thought they’d be in everyhouse when New Zealand went digital, but that was theincentive for the broadcasters in New Zealand to cometogether and say " we’re going to do something aboutit" – and they did, so Freeview is continuing to be amajor way New Zealanders watch television ( 62% ofNew Zealand homes use at least one Freeview devicefor their TV viewing.)

Go to www.freeviewnz.tv

Aaron Oliphert from Kordiadiscussed how the mergingof broadcast platforms andthe Internet presentsopportunities for a widevariety of content providersto reach new audiences.Through hybrid TV solutionsthat Kordia has beendemonstrating and plans tolaunch this time next year,content providers will haveaccess to the big screenexperience in consumers’living rooms.

Kordia is the premier provider of content distributionservices in New Zealand including itinerant events,media distribution from production to studio and digitalbroadcast transmission. Kordia also operates the thirdlargest telecommunications network by reach in NewZealand and has been the driving force in assistingcontent providers onto the Freeview platform.

Angus Swainson G.M Mediafor MetService and Metra-Weather told us how theMeteorological Service of NewZealand (“MetService”) hasgone global in the form ofMetraWeather. They areselling their class-leadingWeatherscape weather pre-sentation software and exper-tise all around the world andcustomers include the BBC,TG4 and Aura in Europe, TVBin Hong Kong, Channel 5 inthe Philippines, Channel 3 in

Thailand, and Channels 7, 9 and 10 in Australia. Angusstarted off by saying that the barriers to having weatheras part of your broadcast service have come down. Therecently launched MetraWeather ClipStore portalenables News producers, programme makers andeditors globally to review, purchase and download high-quality, location-specific weather clips for any servicefrom as little as $20 per clip. As a broadcaster itselfwith a well-equipped studio MetService is producing upto fifteen shows daily for MetService TV and regionalchannels including Maori Television. Access tointernational data sources and local weatherobservations is now enabling MetService to create fully-presented weather shows for broadcasters anywhere inthe world. Clips are updated depending on client’srequests and you can order clips to suit your particularneeds, or you can take generic clips. One of the keymessages that Angus gave was that having anexperienced MetService Meteorologist as the presenteradds tremendous value to any weather presentation,because they can interpret the weather data so that theviewers can understand what they’re talking about. Inother words, put the technical weather information intolayman’s terms.

Go to www.metservice.com

Sam Irvine, the generalmanager of Freeview NewZealand gave us the statisticthat, in New Zealand, users oflinear TV are 97% currently.Even in the UK where they’vehad more offers for longer,linear TV still takes up 94% ofthe market. A comment hasbeen made from a UK sourcethat their view on linear TV isthat it means you’re part ofthe nation – in other wordsyou’re watching the samething that everybody else is

watching and it’s a way of bringing people together.The USA is quite different, because a lot of content,including linear broadcast, is paid for; you don’t getmuch free stuff in the States. Further statistics hestated were that 75% of people in New Zealand willhave ultrafast broadband by 2020. He sees this as anopportunity for Freeview. The nature of content is thevalue the viewers want. He stated that we’ve had nobroadcasting regulations in New Zealand for 20 years,so where does Freeview fit into New Zealand?

Sam said that Freeview was not tied to any particularinfrastructure provider, so a Telco Internet providercould also be a distribution network for VOD andstreaming content over IP. They do work with TV

Page 12

Go to www.kordia.co.nz more on page 15

Brian McCauslandBrian McCausland passed away on 15 July 2014 after ashort battle with cancer.

Brian was a stringer for TVNZ for 30 years and a keenfisherman.

He is survived by his wife April, and son Grant.

Brian will be sadly missed by his colleagues from TVNZ andthe wider Broadcast family with whom he shared his timeand experience.

Page 13

He said that the mobile is going to be the biggest gamechanger in this industry and then stated that how weuse this content is going to be a different experience.

Page 15

and 15 billion of those willbe able to connect ordistribute video. This couldwork out to be 35 connecteddevices per person, whichprobably does seem rather alot.

But here he was talkingabout things like washingmachines and toasters even,which will be connecteddevices within your home.He stated that, in thebroadband market, IP isfuelling the device race.

Mobile broadband growth will increase faster than fixedline broadband.

There’s going to be more cross-media consumption;that extends the game watch time, allows discussion,allows betting, playing games – all sorts of things withyour media delivery device.

Then he posed the question "is the mobile going to bethe ultimate set top box?" In other words, do youactually have to have a box in your media centre whereyour media is recorded or stored or whatever … is thisgoing to be replaced by your mobile phone providing allof these services?

His comment about collecting data from all of this, isthat the data that’s generated by how consumers usedevices can be accessed to improve the experience forthe consumer.

Go to www.ericsson.com

Matt Moran from thePlatform, a subsidiary ofComcast, said that theirmeans of doing business isthat they deliver content tonew platforms. Matt startedtalking about the trends andone is that video capabledevices will outnumber theworld population by 2017.The advantage of presentingdigital only ads online ismeasureable and it’s track-able and when online contentis the same as the broadcast

content, ads can be swapped out. So you can targetads for people who are viewing digitally throughhandheld devices for example. People haveexpectations of premium quality video when consumersare viewing online, and one of the ways of doing this isto provide rich metadata; another is to providepersonalisation with recommendation engines. Sorather than a personal recommendation, the softwareknows by the sort of programmes that you’re watching,the sort of things that you might be interested in. Hethought that satellites and QAM ( which stands forQuadrature Amplitude Modulation which is used in cablenetworks ) were outdated because both are difficult andexpensive to upgrade. If you deliver online, you canroll out new features much more quickly. Perhaps thebest way to go, however, is a Cloud based hybridarchitecture; with a new user interface design, mobileapps will be implemented much, much faster. One wayof extending the content value of broadcast and catch-up programmes is with additional content windowswhen you deliver over the Internet. Talking about olderprogramming, early episodes of a popular current seriescan be monetised by pay per view or premiumsubscription. He concluded by talking about "theelephant in the room" with any of this online delivery –DRM or digital rights management and this is a reasonthat it’s unlikely that we will see set top box typerecording on mobile devices in our future.

Go to www.theplatform.com

Eugene Razbash is the

managing director of

CombiTel who are IPTV

experts.

Eugene started off by saying

that recording TV pro-

grammes is not as simple as

it sounds. The standard use

is with set top boxes, such as

Sky.

If you go to the Cloud, a Pay-

TV operator may provide ( or

subsidise ) a low-cost set-top

box or no device at all ( i.e

end users may watch on their own tablets, phones,

smart TVs, PCs, etc.) It gives greater flexibility,

software designed, lots of storage. While US-based and

Australian Cloud services “experienced legal

challenges”, there may be future options for time

shifting recording in the Cloud in New Zealand; they

have done it in Canada and there are 7,000 subscribers

in Ontario alone. Personal video recorders can fast

forward and rewind; the Cloud based material can’t.

You have to use repositioning and any of you who have

played a YouTube clip for example, where you have to

go on a slider and put the cursor on a particular position

and it will play from that, that’s what they mean by

“repositioning.” It’s not quite so easy just to go back to

see something you missed and you can’t pause

successfully exactly where you want.

There are various new technology paradigms; there’s

the possibility of increased virtualisation in the Cloud;

also software, you can improve your media ( increase

resolution and/or reduce bandwidth and storage

consumption ) by using the H.265/HEVC codec and

thirdly, increased use of open source software.

In summary, Eugene talked about PVR ( personal video

recorder ) manufacturers facing competition from the

Cloud, so they must increase the value that they put

into their recorders. PVRs are now becoming “home

gateways” with new features such as home security.

On the other hand, HbbTV may be all that consumers

want. HbbTV’s catch-up TV functionality, which is

usually implemented by broadcasters themselves, may

serve as a PVR replacement for many consumers, who

may not want to bother setting up their recordings at

home.

Page 16

Cloud based recording is not an obvious trend in our

market because of all the legal issues around content

rights. Finally Eugene said that services must have a

recording capability ( either device-based or cloud-

based ) to time shift, or they may fail.

Go to www.combitel.com.au

Bruce Hume from Switch Media presented a case

study on Foxtel Go, covering the “TV anywhere”

strategy which is when subscription TV providers deliver

content via the Internet rather than a conditional access

network.

This is almost always as a companion app – not to be

confused with Netflix. Austar, acquired by Foxtel in

2011 lead the way in Australia in TV Anywhere; they

chose Adobe Flash to securely deliver content, both

streaming and as download.

The London Olympics app in July 2012 was built and

delivered by Switch Media; this was seen by many

globally as the tipping point for TV Anywhere.

Following this success, in November 2012, Foxtel

launched “Go” on the iPad and in March of 2013 they

launched “Go” on the iPhone. For users, front of their

minds is the data cap that they’re faced with and when

you’re talking about 678 Megabyte per 45 minutes as

the normal average, that’s quite a bit, and users need a

very large cap. Bruce went on to say that everything

was delivered as a linear stream and downloads might

be possible in the future. With the integration to users

of Foxtel PVR, one can control recording at home.

Go to www.switch.tv

Mark Blair from Brightcove

talked about using the Cloud

to deliver a monetised high

quality video content to

many platforms.

MPEG-DASH has the

potential to emerge as a

common video technique

across most vendors bar

Apple who will likely remain

focused on HLS.

The DASH format along with

CENC ( Common Encryption )

is getting pulled into a

broader W3C initiative for DRM protection for content in

browsers using the Encrypted Media Extension

framework, an HTML5 standard.

A key benefit of the CENC approach is a single

encrypted asset but with the ability to support multiple

license key management providers. His key comment

was that hybrid broadcast is going to be the catalyst to

provide the equivalent experience of broadcast

television online – so yet another presenter who really

came out and said that this HbbTV, the European

standard, is looking like the way to go, certainly for the

broadcasters to maintain their position in the market.

Mark pointed out three technology shifts that we can

look forward to –

Emergence of open DRM with broad device /

platform coverage.

Online video raising the standard to meet

broadcast expectations.

Broadcast level transcoding moving to the cloud.

Go to www.brightcove.com

Matt Kossatz, the vice president of Accedo said that

television has already changed; device fragmentation

will continue to drive the evolution.

Page 17

He asked how content providers are using IPTV to

create opportunities. He talked about the Netflix factor.

It’s easy for Netflix to roll out into Australia and New

Zealand.

It’s interesting that they’re looking at local content in

other markets, which has been one of the criticisms of

Netflix, that it’s only content from America.

However, if for Australia and New Zealand they included

local content, it’s obviously going to become a major

challenge for any local player, such as Lightbox and

Sky. He said that Australia was already a crowded

house with lots of subscription video on demand

offerings and many more coming, including, BigPond

Movies, Presto, Quickflix, BBC iPlayer, EzyFlix, Dendy

Direct and others.

Matt’s final thoughts were –

The market will continue to grow rapidly with no

maturity date in sight.

Device fragmentation is here to stay, although

some new front runners are emerging.

Partnerships are key ( both in your own end-to-

end solution and in your content offering for theconsumer.)

Consumers want quality, variety, accessibility and

personalisation.He finished off by saying that there are many areas in

broadcast where problems can occur and this is true for

OTT/Multi-screens type web transmissions as well,

when you have adaptive bit rate.

Some test equipment does not check all parts of the

workflow – obviously Tektronix does; Sentry for live

monitoring, Cerify for offline file-based quality check

and wide tools of baseband SDI/HDMI content integrity

checks.

Go to www.tek.com

Paul Feenstra, Media

Strategist and Audio Consul-

tant, was mainly concerned

with 5.1 surround sound and

dispelling the myth that it’s

actually difficult to mix; it

isn’t. He clarified that High

Definition Sound is a

marketing term and it’s

loosely qualified as “better

than CD audio.” Therefore if

audio data compression is

used in transmission, it

cannot be High Definition

audio. Certainly MP3 encoded audio cannot be High

Definition. In 5.1, you have five channels of full range

audio and one low frequency channel. The Mixer can

distribute audio to the five plus one speakers in a

predetermined way.

The unfortunate thing is that there are no credible

books on how to mix in 5.1, just on how to set-up

equipment and software. It’s all learned by trial and

error, or by socialising best-practice.

However, international markets demand audio content

is delivered in 5.1 to a specific format, so something

needs to be done to promote its use in New Zealand

where Mixers can be more familiar with it.

Paul went on to say that a 5.1 mix can be easier to mix

than stereo, because it’s simpler to modify a mix to

adjust for loudness restrictions. He also said that New

Zealand, broadcasters need to take on 5.1 standards as

normal, and enforce them. 5.1 for TV is really about

subtleties – we don’t want the viewer distracted from

the picture. What we see is what we expect to hear.

In 5.1, dialogue always originates from the centre

speaker at the screen, therefore dialogue driven content

can be more pleasing to listen to, yes, even the news

and weather. Surround sound allows the Mixer to

Page 18

Go to www.accedo.tv

Klaven Siow from Tektronix

reiterated the other speakers’

comments that there’s been a

boom in video enabled

devices, but he asked how

many owners actually used

the video portion of those

devices.

What is really important in

any of these applications is

Adaptive Bit Rate( ABR )

which is the underlying

technology necessary for

mobile devices.

He said that, in general, when you’re talking about

customers, not all customers who are dissatisfied will

complain. Non-complaining customers are more likely

to switch brands or stop watching the channel. You’re

lucky if 1 in 100 calls you if there’s a problem with your

transmission. You need some way of monitoring

customer satisfaction, which is very similar for any

customer based analysis of what’s going on.

There are two parts to monitoring what the customers

think of you – one is QOS or Quality of Service, and

that is a technical measure; and then there is Quality of

Experience, QOE and this is subjective by the customer

and is measurable by Tektronix.

What’s important is that you monitor these at the right

stages of the workflow. This is important for isolating

and quickly repairing any problems – reducing Mean

Time To Repair ( MTTR.) If you only see it at the end,

you don’t know what part of your workflow caused the

problem.

create better imaging – for example, where the sound

actually appears to come from – its left/right/front/rear

placement in the audio image. A tip for those people

mixing 5.1 live is, when you’re monitoring, listen in the

audio format that most of your audience will listen, but

switch occasionally.

Ed: Paul, do you see 5.1 as a way for broadcasters tomake a point of difference when comparing broadcasttelevision to Internet television?

Paul: At present yes. It is added value and has anedge over streamed audio as many people are notequipped to listen to their audio from the internet in5.1.

Ed: If you broadcast 5.1, do you have to alsobroadcast a stereo signal for those sets that cannotreceive 5.1?

Paul: Encoding 5.1 into “AC3” allows the listener theoption of decoding and listening in 5.1 or in Stereo, ifthey have the software or hardware. The same fileprovides the listener with an either/or option, which canbe transmitted through the Internet as an AC3 encodedDolby Stereo file and is done automatically.

Ed: So you’re saying 5.1 can be successfully deployedover the Internet?

Paul: Yes.

Go to www.paulfeenstra.com

Cees van Egmond from

SeaChange talked about

monetisation in the hybrid

OTT world.

Hybrid TV enables new

business models.

It merges the best of

both advertising worlds.

It opens the door for

paid-for content.

It requires rethinking

the viewer relationship tools

to manage the viewing

experience as well as the business relationship.

Tools to measure and monitor monetisation are

as important as those to manage and control. All

cross-platform.

The expected QOS ( Quality of Service ) will

require broadcast grade systems.

Go to www.schange.com

To finish the conference off there was a paneldiscussion with Sam from Freeview, Paul from Gorilla,Khush from Ericsson and Trevor Bird from Seven WestMedia.

I finished off by asking Darren Kirsop-Frearson fromGencom and host Gerry Smith what they thought of theshow.

Ed: Gerry, you’ve got a smile on your face, soobviously it’s worked for you?

Gerry: It’s been fantastic, I mean we’ve had twodays of it, the speakers have been excellent, theMinister came along and did the opening, there havebeen challenging new things we’ve heard from ChannelSeven Australia that are fantastic – talking about lineartelevision and free to air being alive and well. We hadMike McMahon from Spark giving us lots of insight intothe Lightbox offering just a few days before it launched.That was fantastic.

Ed: So that’s it, there’s been a wide spectrum herehasn’t there, from the broadcasters through to the IPTVpeople?

Gerry: And that’s what we wanted to do. That wasthe whole theme of it, beyond television, to try andsend out questions to the people and prompt people tothink about what is the future of broadcasting.

Ed: Now Darren, has the conference been positivefrom an industry point of view?

Darren: Absolutely. I think what’s happening isthat the industry has changed. We recognise that ourtraditional customers have got new challenges, theyhave to change, they have to adapt and of course for usto support those customers we’ve had to change as welland I think this is a great event for us to come andshow how we’re changing and how we can providesolutions for these customers. The timing of this eventI think has been perfect, with Spark makingannouncements this week, the Minister saying variousthings are going to happen … the timing has beenbrilliant. With people saying “what do we do next” it’sbeen absolutely ideal.

Ed: And from a Gencom point of view, obviously hereare the people who have come along to this event,they’re the ones who are looking to you for the servicesto provide them with this move into IPTV andbroadcast, and the hybrid version possibly?

Darren: That very much seems to be the flavour ofthe discussions that we’ve been having with people hereso yes, let’s hope so, let’s hope they come looking forus.

Ed: Has anything emerged that you think “this is theway it’s going to go”?

Page 20

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Darren: There’s still lots of questionsout there, which is why the conference hasbeen so vibrant and with lots of discussion.I wouldn’t want to pick a particular winner,but certainly the HbbTV thing seems tohave had everybody talking.

It clearly still has some kinks that need tobe ironed out, but it does look like, from abroadcaster’s perspective, that this wassomething very positive, and of coursethere is already a standard, it’s not lots ofpeople trying to get the different standards.So I think lots of discussion about HbbTV.

Ed: Now Gerry, in terms of running alarge conference like this, it must be anexpensive operation but a number of keysuppliers in New Zealand and overseas havecome together and made this possible?

Gerry: There’s a core of suppliers thathave made the thing possible and stumpedup with the money, along with ourExhibitors and Sponsors, like Gencom,Switch Media, Brightcove, Accedo, Ericssonand Techtel.

These are the companies that have sponsored events,helped us with the luncheons, helped us with thecatering and those sorts of things, to bring it alltogether. It’s enabled us to keep the cost down for thepeople sitting in the chairs – the delegates that we wantto attract along here.

So those sponsors and those exhibitors have beenfantastic from that point of view.

Ed: Do you think there’ll be another one?

Gerry: I think there will be another one and I thinkthere should be another one.

Ed: You might need a bigger venue?

Gerry: Hopefully we will need a bigger venue we’revery, very excited by the number of people who havecome along.

Ed: So watch this space – in another two years’ timewe might all meet again?

Gerry: Absolutely. NZVN

Page 22

Darren Kirsop-Frearson and Gerry Smith.

Page 23

Dunedin HeritageWe are now in a very nice old building,

No 8 Dowling Street, the former Dunedin

production centre of TVNZ many, many

years ago, but now occupied by three

companies – Animation Research,

Taylormade Productions and the focus of

this interview today, The Video Factory

managed by Graham McArthur.

Ed: Now Graham, you were actually in

this building in the TVNZ days I

understand?

Graham: Yes, I started my career

here as a technical trainee and spent a

significant amount of time with TVNZ

finishing my career with them as the

editing manager Dunedin. Then in 1991,

one Friday afternoon, I walked out of one

door of the TVNZ building, Garrison Hall

Dunedin and on the following Monday morning, I

walked back in to The Video Factory via the downstairs

door. We had a pile of equipment which we had taken

a deep breath and purchased to try and keep making

television programmes independently, and had, I think

about a month to get an operation up and running and

deliver our first on air show. For that year 1991, we

made a children’s programme called Wild T.

Ed: So that was obviously a stressful time and it’sbeen smooth sailing ever since?

Graham: That’s right … it’s been very stressful ever

since!

Ed: Well that’s life in the fast lane isn’t it – there are

not many out there who are having a cruisy time of it

currently?

Graham: You start with one or two problems and

then just keep adding to them basically.

Ed: But you’re still here, so you’re obviously doingsomething successful?

Graham: Well, over the years, you get to know a few

people in the industry, and we had a pretty good run

with New Zealand On Air funding. We haven’t had any

for the last 5 or 6 years I suppose, but prior to that, I

think our best run was 10 seasons of the children’s

programme Squirt which was, Video Factory, Animation

Research Limited supplying the motion tracking and

Taylormade producing it. Since then, there hasn’t beenanything like that back on New Zealand television …

Ed: You mean good children’s programming?

Graham: I mean that particular type of good

children’s programme where it was a good combination

of real people and a computer generated character

Spike, who basically ran the thing. Actually, that series

ironically finished at the same time as an iceberg

floated up from Antarctica off the Otago coast. We tookSpike out in a helicopter and put him on the iceberg to

take him home and we’re thinking maybe we’ll see him

again sometime. You never know, these icebergs have

a habit of cruising round a bit. Since then, we’ve been

really relying on our local clients and also local

connections to be able to do quite a variety of things.

Ed: You’re still doing things for mainstream broadcast

television, the big channels?

Graham: Yes, when the opportunity presents itself.

We’ve been involved in a few docos over the years,

again nothing much recently. We do a little bit News-

wise as the TVNZ Newsroom is just across the road

from us …

Ed: So you provide stringer services?

Graham: We help them, yes, as they need it; and we

make the occasional TVC, although these days, we

seem to be making more for Australia than for New

Zealand. We’ve had to diversify quite a bit, so we’ve

had a good hard look at 3D and, in fact, in 2009, we

were part of the group that put a 3D short movie into

Ed Hillary Centre, in The Hermitage at Mt Cook, which

has been running there ever since and that gave us

good early experience in 3D. We used a 3D correction

and post system written by ARL and since then we’ve

done a bit with 3D – along with ARL, the story of Maui

for the Auckland waterfront Waka during the Rugby

World cup, we post-produced and finished a 3D movie

called Yakel shot in a village in Vanuatu and we’ve shot

the last two Wearable Arts shows plus other bits and

pieces, but we see 3D as needing to be quite specifically

targeted. In my view, it’s not for everybody’s lounge,

it’s much more for a theatre that you’ve got control of

and there needs to be a purpose for it too. Often it’s a

bit of overkill and 2D can work just as well.

Ed: That sounds like a very refreshing and sensible

business decision?

Graham: Well I don’t know how many of our

business decisions are either refreshing or sensible. We

seem to just keep going with the flow. Things have

been fairly tight for the last few years, but we’ve found

that it’s actually made more sense to make sure that

people are working, so that’s led to us being able to try

quite a few things that perhaps we wouldn’t have tried

in the past, and also to be able to co-operate with other

individuals or groups and help where we can, where

budget isn’t the main consideration.

Ed: You do have a business relationship with

Animation Research and with Taylormade?

Graham: Yes we do. We see them as being sister

companies, and they see us as being a sister as well,

and so from time to time, there are projects that

Animation Research have that we provide services for

both sound and video. Similarly, there are some

projects we pick up where there’s an animation

component that ARL are able to provide us material for

as well.

Page 24

Ed: What about Internet services? There are a lot of

people looking at that as the future – broadcast

television’s on the way out, we’ve got to get providing

material for Internet television. Is that something that

you’ve got underway?

Graham: We see the potential as being very exciting.

I mean, everybody says that, but I’m not sure that they

always know what it is that they mean when they say it.

I’ve spent a lot of time talking to programme producers

and directors about ways of being able to control your

own output …

Ed: You mean to “monetise” the output?

Graham: Well that would be nice too, but that’s also

easier said than done … but certainly not having to work

through the traditional channels where you’re having to

work to a broadcaster’s requirements and specifications.

Ed: Is that because those specifications are now quite

outdated?

Graham: Well I’m not meaning in the technical

sense; I’m meaning more in the programming and

production sense. When you think about it, the

broadcasters are there doing the best they can for their

channel and for their audience and that doesn’t

necessarily always match up with what a producer or

director’s views of how a particular topic should be

covered are.

Ed: Maybe they need to question their thinking as to

what their audience is wanting. To try other ways to

make programmes that are not currently regarded as

mainstream. Now there’s a much wider scope for

getting stuff on air through the Internet, so it should be

opening up the whole system for new people –

producers with new ideas and ways of doing things?

Graham: Yes, I completely agree. There are people

around who have pet schemes that are now becoming

much more possible and, to that end, we’ve been

involved in making content for the Internet. We’ve also

been involved in streaming various events and we

believe we’ve got a reasonable handle on what’s

possible currently and what the limitations are

currently. But the way it’s looking, from that

perspective, it can only get better. Whether there’s a

good way to make money out of it or not, I think really

depends on the project, but one of the great things

about it is that the audience that you’re looking at is

obviously not just limited to New Zealand. You can be

looking at a very tight and quite specific audience, but

it’s now become much bigger because it’s a worldwide

audience. That has to provide opportunities; it’s really

a matter of finding the people or being able to do it

ourselves to start moving those opportunities forward

and turning them into a reality.

Ed: Do you agree with the thought that the Internet

option also gives you the opportunity to continue using

current gear – that the quality level of what is possible

to be streamed is actually lower than the technical level

of a lot of the broadcast quality equipment that you

currently have, so there’s no real need to invest in new

technology?

Graham: I suppose you could look at it like that.

We’ve sort of found that it is sensible to make use of

the broadcast quality equipment that you’ve got,

whatever it is that you’re doing, if you can, because it

actually ends up by making life a bit easier. But, having

said that, over the last five years especially, equipment

has changed, especially cameras have changed so

much, that it’s really hard to define what is “broadcast

quality” anymore and so I suppose the way I would look

at it is probably how you started that question, and that

is that it certainly does provide the opportunity to be

able to use equipment that is sitting round because it’s

getting a bit long in the tooth; and if that means that

you don’t have to rush out and buy a couple of new

cameras, then that can’t be a bad thing in today’s

world. Having said that, many production facilities that

we’re competing with at the moment are able to make

use of the latest equipment that has cost little. I mean,

for ten grand, you get a camera and an editing system

and you’re out there competing. We had to find half a

million to get started in ’91. It still sounds like quite a

lot of money; in ’91 it was a real hurdle for us, and I

mean not just us, there were others out there doing the

same thing. For that money we were able to put

together an edit suite and a couple of field cameras.

We took quite a bold step at the time and went with

Panasonic, M2 as a tape format and that actually served

us very well. I think we were lucky in that we were in a

fairly small market locally, so we were able to be self-

sufficient with the equipment that we had. In those

days, to be able to get our programmes out, we needed

to transfer to one inch but, because we were in the

same building as TVNZ, and had a relationship with

them, that really wasn’t a problem. All the way through

we’ve managed to maintain that relationship and we

have had a really good relationship with Panasonic right

from the start. They looked after us, they did things

like where we bought one camera, they imported two,

and held the second one as a spare. So we made our

Page 26

decisions and it’s worked out pretty well for us in that

regard, which has sort of got me away from the

competition thing … nevertheless, I think it is quite a

different landscape now to what it was when we

started.

Ed: You do really have to look at that new technology

because it’s smaller, it’s lighter, it’s got a better

workflow and it’s providing some of the codecs that you

need for some of those streaming options straight outof the camera?

Graham: Yes that’s true. I think in some ways the

thing that we forget is just how much more difficult

editing was when we were doing it tape to tape.

Ed: A “time base corrector” – what’s that?

Graham: Well that’s right, yes. These days, if you

can use a word processor, in theory you can use a

nonlinear editing system – well certainly a lot of peoplethink like that. Whether that makes an editor or not is

another thing.

Ed: It’s the difference between perception and reality

isn’t it?

Graham: It is, yes. But I think that being able to try

things and just put things together really quickly and be

able to have input from multiple

numbers of cameras and edit that as

quickly as you can from a few

cameras, has made quite a change in

the way that we see programme

making.

In some ways, that’s raised the bar abit, but in other ways, YouTube has

lowered that bar again so I’m not

quite sure where we are there. I

think that you just have to decide

what market it is you’re in, and pitch

yourself accordingly.

Ed: And there’s certainly a premium

for experience in this industry?

Graham: Well I like to think so, but

then I’ve been around long enough to

think that I’ve got some experience

and certainly you do see some people

that are fairly fresh in the industry

who are making all sorts of wonderful

mistakes and you know, if they ask for help, we’re

certainly here to help, but people seem to have to make

their own mistakes – I suppose I did, so that’s pretty

much the way of it.

But also, the other side of it is that you’ve got to look at

those people because there’s lots of fresh ideas there

and they’re seeing things differently to the way that I’ve

seen things, because you know, all they’ve known is the

Internet for instance, and that’s still relatively new in

some of our lives, so the possibilities that they see are

quite different. If we can help them realise some of

those possibilities, then that works for both of us, so

I’m happy to do that.

Ed: Hopefully there’s work for old dogs and young

dogs?

Graham: I think so. I mean it’s like anything you

know, you can’t approach it in a conservative …

Ed: Luddite?

Graham: Well I was going to say that but … manner,

yes …

Ed: They’ll be able to look it up in a dictionary

somewhere – no, they’ll Google it – L-u-d-d-i-t-e boys

and girls …

Graham: But you know, I think

that if you’re prepared to see the

opportunities through somebody

else’s eyes, and sometimes it does

require a bit of a deep breath and

sometimes you think things aren’t

going to work and often they don’t,

but the industry we’re in has

always been a 10 percenter – 9 of

the 10 ideas that you have don’t

go anywhere at all and, for the

10th one, you have to work really

hard to make it go somewhere and

even then, there’s no guarantee

that it will, even with that hard

work.

So from that point of view things

haven’t really changed that much.

Ed: Work hard and be good to

your mother eh?

Graham: Always. NZVN

Page 27

Lisa and John in the 3D suite.

Murray shooting Warbirds over Wanaka.

... because you can park.What an excuse for a party!Host for the evening, TyronePayne, takes up the storywith assistance from hisdear friend Pinot.

Ed: Now Tyrone, we’re ata new premises andeveryone’s very happy here… it’s not just the freedrinks, it’s that you’veactually got parking.Naturally, there are alwaysplenty of reasons to visitProtel, but what possiblykept people away in the pastwas the one and onlyparking space at City Roadin Auckland. Now you’ve gotEIGHT carparks! This hasgot to increase yourcustomer visits?

Tyrone: All free for customers. Everybody whowalks in here has mentioned the carparking, becausewe’re all pretty busy and you don’t want to have to goaround and find a carpark and put money in the meteror whatever it is. It’s easy just to pull up, do yourbusiness …

Ed: But that’s it, it makes such a difference if youwant to come and have a look at something – just theease of getting there; it’s why inner city businessdoesn’t seem to do as well as people who are out in thesuburbs, so it’s got to be good for you. And you’ve gotmore space?

Tyrone: It’s been a good move. We’re very happyto be here, there have been good comments frompeople, so I’m really happy. There were someundesirable aspects of that K Rd area …

Ed: ... well it depends on your bent doesn’t it?

Tyrone: That’s right … I don’t know what else tosay. It’s not just about the location here, it’s the factthat all the staff are a lot happier coming to the officeevery day because they go against the traffic, theydon’t go with the traffic and that means they’re a lotmore available to the customers and, when customerscome in, they’re tending to spend a longer time here.

Ed: Now before Ken’s had too many beers, we’dbetter ask him what he’s looking forward to in thesenew premises. Ken, I see your office is much bigger,and it’s right by the door – is there a reason for that, soyou can get out quicker?

Ken: No, it’s not the escape route, but it means thecustomers can just come straight into my office and buyas much as they like.

Ed: Wow. Do you offer layby?

Ken: Yes we do.

Ed: Are you looking forward to summer?

Ken: Absolutely, I can zip home at lunchtime and havea swim.

Ed: But the lake’s just across the … you know …you’re very close?

Ken: Yeah – it’s a bit treacley …

Ed: It’s more of a boating lake is it?

Ken: Yeah, there’s a lot of floaters.

Ed: Alright, so you’ve got a workshop here, whatabout a good sound room?

Ken: All the speakers are on the far side of the offices.We have put some soundproofing up, but not that manypeople need to listen to them full volume.

Ed: Because that’s it – you come to Protel for eithersound or video or both?

Ken: Yes, exactly.

Ed: And your big seller at the moment is …?

Ken: ... Livestream would be it.

Ed: Now one of the new brands that I’ve seen on theProtel ads is Lewitt?

Ken: Lewitt microphones – Rene’s the man to talk toabout them, but yes, it’s a new brand of microphones,our own exclusive brand in New Zealand.

Ed: You can try out the known brands and

some unknown brands and decide what you like?

Ken: Yes, decide which one suits your

application. They’ve got different models to suit

– live, band …

Ed: I think it’s time for another beer Ken.

Ken: Yes, I need a good strong dark one!

Ed: Was that beer, not women?

Ken: All I can say is it’s just as well my wife

doesn’t read your articles.

Ed: She might learn something about you.

Page 29

You can Now visit Protel in Auckland ...

Go and learn something yourself by visiting

Protel’s new Auckland premises, opposite Carl’s

Junior at 76 Paul Matthews Road, just off Upper

Harbour Drive.

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Page 31

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Amongst the first run shows that nobody else willhave, will be Arrested Development, Alpha House,Beaters and Outlander. The resolution will be up to1080 and the bit rate up to 5 megabit per second,although they will be delivering an adaptive bit rate.

I asked them if there was any local content, and yes,it’s coming and it will include documentaries. I alsoasked if there was a special deal for Spark customersand the answer was that there will be, and it will beannounced at a later date, but not what it is going tobe. They finished off by saying they were interestedin 4K, but nothing yet. There was nothing in thesystem that will preclude its use in future times.

My conclusion is that, if you want VOD entertainmentof the genre they are offering at the uncertain qualityof streamed adaptive bit rate and you are happypaying for the data as well as $15 per 30 days, whynot?

It's not an offer that's going to improve the socialfabric of our nation but it might keep more potatoeson their couches and off the streets of an eveningwhen the more enlightened might look for theatreparking.

NZVN

Further to Mike McMahon's presenta-tion at the Media Conference, I wentto a specific Lightbox launch the nextevening.

There weren’t terribly manyjournalists there, but it was a verywell catered event, as one wouldexpect from Telecom – soon to beSpark. They emphasised that thiswas a Beta launch, so the aim was toput it out there, get people to usesome of the initial content so theycould get feedback and so makechanges before the real launch. Itwas going to be an invite only trial,where those invitees could test theinterface, could see whether theyactually like the content and make thecomments before they did the majorlaunch to the public. There weremany things they were going to addas time went on, but they were fairlycagey as to what they were, because they kept saying“well we want to see how the Beta goes.” What ishappening from Day One, is that Lightbox will have noads or interruptions. It will be Internet based, so youneed to have your computer; you can’t connectdirectly through your television. For $15 per 30 days,you can take all the content that you want. It startswith a 30 day free trial and your broadband connectioncan be to any provider. However, the broadband datadownload that you use is at your cost, so whetheryou’re with Spark or any other, you pay for that aswell as your $15 for 30 days. Initially iPads, PCs andMacs will be the medium that you can use. At somelater stage, there will be more devices that will besupported. They say that they’re not dipping theirtoes into this, it’s full on and they will have some firstrun exclusive shows. The Head of Programming, MariaMahoney, stated that they would have Vikings, LiveAnother Day ( 24 ), Mad Men, Louis, Breaking Bad,Doctor Who, House of Cards, Downton Abbey,Homeland, Black List, Orphan Black, Masters of Sex,The In Betweeners – as just some of the shows. Theywould also have in the kids’ section, Thomas the TankEngine, The Wiggles, Dora the Explorer.

Lightbox by Spark launched