Video: Working remotely in a crisis

We’ve perhaps all seen the memes that the ‘digital transformation’ of a company is not because of ‘leadership vision’, adapting to the competition, but rather ‘Covid-19’. Whilst this is both trite yet often true, there is value in understanding what broadcast companies have done to deal with the pandemic virus and COVID-19.

Robert Ambrose introduces and talks to our guests to find out how their companies have changed to accommodate remote working. First to speak is Jack Edney of The Farm Group, a post production company. They looked closely at the communication needed within the organisation, managing priorities of tasks and maintaining safety and resources. Jack shows how the stark difference between pre- and during- lockdown workflows seeing how much they are now remote. Jack explains how engaged his technical teams have been in making this work very quickly.

Brian Leonard from IMG has done much the same as IMG have moved towards remote working as they have changed from 300 people on site to around 3 people on site and everything else remote. Brian talks about how they’d expanded into a local building in order to make life easier in the earlier days. He then considers the pros and cons of being reliant on a significant freelance staff – that being the option of using their pre-existing equipment at home. Finally we look at how their computer-based SimplyLive production software allows them the immediate ability to remotely produce video.

OWNZONES is up next with Rick Phelps who gives a real example of a customer’s workflow which was on-premise showing the before and after diagrams for when this moved remotely. These workflows were extended into the cloud by, say, using proxies and editing using an EDL, encoding and amending metadata all in the cloud. Rick suggests that this is both a short-term trend but suggests much will remain like this in the longer-term.

Finally, Johan Sundström from Yle in Finland takes to the stand to give a point of view from a public broadcaster. He explains how
they have created guest booths near their main entrance connected to the new channels so facilitate low-contact interviews. Plexiglass is being installed in control rooms and people are doing their own makeup. He also highlights some apps which allow for remote contribution of audio. They are also using software-based mixers like the Tricaster plus Skype TX to keep producers connected and involved in their programmes. The session concludes with a Q&A.

Watch now!
Speakers

Jack Edney Jack Edney
Operations Director,
The Farm Group
Johan Sundström Johan Sundström
Head of Technology Vision,
Yle Finland
Rick Phelps Rick Phelps
Chief Commercial Officer,
OWNZONES
Brian Leonard Brian Leonard
Head of Engineering: Post and Workflows
IMG
Robert Ambrose Robert Ambrose
Managing Consultant,
High Green Media

Webinar: Reducing Churn, Building Engagement & Delighting Subscribers

The Streaming Video Alliance is back with the next in their webinar series and the focus turns to churn.

Viewer churn is the OTT killer. But keeping subscribers engaged and coming back to a service involves more than just great content. It requires a keen eye on the data—from ensuring a great Quality of Experience (QoE) to making smart marketing decisions about content to providing excellent customer service, data is key.

  • What should you be measuring?
  • What are the key metrics and their thresholds?
  • How do you implement all of this into an existing workflow?

This panel will explore the kind of data that can have a meaningful impact on an OTT experience, best practices for measuring different elements within the workflow, and the techniques to capture the data that you need.

Panelists include:
Aditya Ganjam from Conviva
Nick Nelson from OWNZONES
Jonathan Shields from Nice People at Work
and Brenton Ough from Touchstream

This topic will be moderated by Jason Thibeault, the Executive Director of the Streaming Video Alliance.