TVBEurope has announced a new event, Fast Turnaround TV, for 13 March — and confirmed 2012 dates of 13 June for 3D Masters and 3 July for The IT Broadcast Workflow – in a three-event line-up for next year, writes Fergal Ringrose.
While both 3D Masters and The IT Broadcast Workflow are already well established in the European broadcast TV technology marketplace, Fast Turnaround TV is a brand new idea and we are very pleased to introduce this event in Spring 2012.
Fast Turnaround TV will be held at The Soho Hotel on Tuesday 13 March. What’s its raison d’etre? Quite simply, the new technologies and workflows behind big live/as-live broadcast TV productions.
Live event-driven TV programming has become the cornerstone of a broadcaster’s schedule. Despite the threat to traditional viewing from VoD and online catch-up, audiences have been sustained and even grown by major live and as-live ‘watercooler’ events, which deliver audience mass that no other media can yet match.
All of these events require rigorous planning, preparation and testing often to extremely exacting deadlines. They are all underpinned by innovation in technology and they all require the right craft expertise that will make – or break – the show.
Fast Turnaround TV uniquely exposes the constraints and complexities of these multi-faceted productions. It breaks down the new and upcoming technologies broadcasters and producers need in order to deliver innovative forms of presentation. It uncovers the specialist skills necessary to deliver a failsafe transmission and unearths the behind-the-scenes accounts of the most high profile recent live/as-live productions.
What are the keys to success? How do market leaders plan, implement, communicate and execute successful large-scale productions whether in sports, music events, topical comedy, international events or shiny-floor light entertainment? With huge pressure to raise the bar every time, what are the latest technology innovations out there that boost coverage and retain eyeballs?
Fast Turnaround TV looks at the technical deployments involved, whether for HD or 3D delivery – or both. How do you combine teams, so that main show production, news teams and digital media can share assets – across principal broadcast, incidentals, lead-ins and lead-outs and web content?
How do you set up and connect camera positions, contribution, links, storage, sound, ingest, I/O, graphics, editing, crewing and new delivery methods? Is there still a role for videotape? What’s the optimum mix of hardware-based and software-based systems? What are the biggest delivery problems – path delays, compression limitations, profanity loops, and delivery via non-RF based technologies?
We believe Fast Turnaround TV will be a unique opportunity for peers and colleagues from around Europe to come together for one day to experience case studies that detail how events were produced, how technology and logistics were deployed, and what technical innovations were introduced to enhance the coverage.
Meanwhile, 3D Masters will return to BAFTA on 13 June 2012. We are very pleased to confirm that two of the premier societies supporting the broadcasting industry, BKSTS and SMPTE, will be key industry partners for the 2012 event. In return, TVBEurope will become a media partner for The Forum on Emerging Media Technologies, to be hosted by SMPTE and the EBU and held in Geneva next May.
Ahead of the London 2012 Games next summer, 3D TV will come into sharp industry focus as the marketplace looks to establish which technologies, productions, partnerships and commercial strategies hold the key to breakthrough success. 3D Masters will be a central part of this dialogue in 2012.
The venue for the 3 July IT Broadcast Workflow conference will be the Royal Garden Hotel, Kensington – moved to the west of London and closer to Heathrow, the BBC and the UK vendor community by request, following its last outing at America Square in the City of London earlier this year.