The EBU Technical Assembly visits MediaCity UK
CTOs, chief engineers and technology representatives from across the EBU are visiting us to share knowledge and look to the future.
BBC Design + Engineering, the division within which BBC R&D sits, is delighted to be welcoming the European Broadcasting Union’s Technical Assembly to our building in Salford, where we are hosting their meeting in conjunction with ITV and RTE from Dublin.
When most people hear the letters “EBU”, the first thing that comes to mind is the glitz and glamour of the Eurovision Song Contest, but the EBU is much more than that. The EBU is the world’s leading alliance of public service media (PSM). It has 73 members in 56 countries in Europe, and an additional 33 Associates in Asia, Africa, Australasia and the Americas. These members operate almost 2,000 television, radio and online channels and services, and offer a wealth of content across other platforms. Together they reach an audience of more than one billion people around the world, broadcasting in more than 120 languages.
One of the most significant areas of work of the EBU is the Technology and Innovation section. This area aims to help members navigate the fast-paced technical landscape by providing expertise, relevant and trusted information, and a place to circulate their knowledge and experience - for instance in sharing learnings about changing to IP infrastructure in new buildings. They bring together strategic programmes of work to both innovate in new technical areas for media across production and distribution, data and spectrum, and also to help their members to understand how to use those technologies - for instance, drawing up guidelines for the use of new lighting technologies. By representing so many members, the EBU can have a lot of influence in standards bodies as well, being active in groups like DVB, SMPTE and 3GPP.
- BBC R&D - Innovation with the EBU in the BBC News Lab
- BBC R&D - The EBU/DVB High Dynamic Range Workshop
The Technical Assembly is the CTOs, Chief Engineers and similar representatives from across the EBU - in my role as Head of Standards and Industry I work extensively with the EBU representing the BBC in discussions on the technical direction of broadcasting in Europe. The Assembly meets every June and about 100 people from 35 countries come together to share knowledge. There are representatives from a wide range of broadcasters from ARD in Germany to Vatican Radio to BTRC in Belarus and are joined by global partners such as NHK in Japan. They have a key role in agreeing the workplan for the following year and electing the Technical Committee (every other year) who control the running of the workplan. This covers the full range of the work, for instance developing an open-source Next Generation Audio renderer and subtitles for online servers and is published on their website. During the week the EBU will also present the innovation award for this year, which is given in recognition of, and to encourage and support, media technology innovation driven by engineers in Member organisations.
This year the Technical Assembly is meeting at the BBC’s Media City buildings in Salford on 7 and 8 June. There will be two day of talks on a wide range of topics from many different members on anything from infrastructure for new broadcasting centres to personalisation, to the Football World Cup in UHD.
On the first afternoon the attendees will be splitting into four groups to visit local facilities. One group will visit The Space project, an innovative area of studios, collaboration space and offices for Digital Media. Another will visit the studio of the UK’s longest running soap opera – Coronation Street, and a third the BBC’s Sports facilities in the run up to the World Cup. A final group will visit BBC R&D’s North Lab for talks and demonstrations around the theme of object-based media.
- Look ma, no wires! Vision mixing #EBUTA from a laptop with remote IP production with @BBCRD IP Studio tech. Can be controlled from anywhere, over wi-fi, at broadcast quality. pic.twitter.com/j7rrNjftiA — Chris Northwood (@cnorthwood)
And alongside these will be a range of demonstrations of new technology from BBC R&D, the BBC's Blue Room and ITV Innovation. This will include work on 5G, Connected TV and the use of smart tools in production.
- COGNITUS demo today at the @EBUTech Technical Assembly '18 in MediaCityUK, Salford. @BBCRD#UGC in #broadcasting. pic.twitter.com/5gRvjeqOh5 — cognitus-h2020 (@H2020Cognitus)
We are really looking forward to hosting our European colleagues and showing them something of life at the BBC.
Update: BBC R&D's Audio Team have won this year's EBU Innovation Award for their work on a Next Generation Audio renderer!
- Congrats to @BBCRD@chrispickles for winning the EBU innovation award for their contribution to rendering the next generation of audio pic.twitter.com/tYdeKEefp8 — Ian Wagdin (@wagger)
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