If we could have a “Year of the Engineer”, then I am firmly of the opinion that 2020 would be it. Lockdown has demonstrated unprecedented imagination, ingenuity and tenacity, especially for our engineering community.
All industry sectors have been impacted by Covid-19 during 2020 and broadcasting is no exception, with a common theme being acceleration of trends already in train, both positive and negative.
As TV broadcasters struggle to stay on air during the pandemic, the FCC has released the map to the future NextGen TV Broadcast Internet world.
After a year like 2020, predicting the future is scary business. However there are several leading-edge technologies—many borrowed from the IT and consumer-facing industries—that certainly look to make a significant impact on video production and broadcasting in 2021. Here are some, in no particular order, that will see continued implementation and streamline production and distribution workflows. To date we’ve seen these new tools begin to alter the way video production and distribution is done, helping the industry move forward and media businesses grow, and that’s certain to continue in new and exciting ways.
The industry experienced futureshock head-on in 2020. The impact will take a long time to unwind but it’s already clear that some changes will be profound and not all of them bad. These changes include remote workflow permanency, virtual production shifts from exotic to routine and genuine efforts to save the planet. Here’s hoping.
This time last year, had anyone predicted or suggested what is now normal in live TV news, sports and entertainment, such as fake fans, laugh track-style crowd noise and regular live news reporting and interviews from reporter’s homes, they would have been laughed out of the industry. Who would have thunk?
With many production personnel working from home these days, gaining access to computers and systems back at the studio can be tricky, both logistically and due to obtaining the right security authorization. In many cases, a network- or software-based solution is not adequate because the available bandwidth might run out, the VPN connection does not always guarantee sufficient transmission quality, or the connection is not reliable or secure enough.
There’s no way to sugarcoat it: The pandemic has had a highly disruptive effect on video production and distribution in 2020 and many agree it will be felt for several years. The inability for people to gather safely has made it impossible for full-scale video production to go ahead as it did before. Yet, the industry has risen to the challenge in a myriad of ways and learned to be more efficient in the process.
