production , playout , media management is going forward .” TALENT . “ Technically , the last few months have shown that we can do it and it is working for the most part ,” observes Andy Newton , senior solutions architect , Qvest Media , suggesting that the opportunity : cost ratio for reducing the amount of travel people have to do is so high . “ Why send hundreds of people to the Olympics if you don ’ t need to ,” he asks . “ Why not take advantage of the best editor you can get at a particular time . Why not allow people work in multiple productions because they don ’ t need to travel from one to the other . It ’ s definitely an opportunity to get more out of onscreen and behind the screen talent .”
“ It doesn ’ t necessarily mean that we want to work that way , because that ’ s something we need to bear in mind because creatively and personally , working in isolation can distil a job to a rather procedural level . We are a creative industry , we ’ re not machines . It could be that when this is all over , the new normal is a hybrid model , where yes , we can work remotely but we don ’ t have to . The key message for me is that the advances we ’ ve seen are decoupling the location of the hardware and the location of the people ,” he advises .
“ If we look at the industry in all walks , we ’ ve been moving towards this logical progression that you could do many of these tasks remotely ,” says Scott Rose , SVP product , Encompass Digital Media . “ At the point we moved a lot of broadcast applications to
“ It ’ s here to stay and there ’ s the technology to support it .” - Rick Clarkson ,
Signiant
software from hardware . The underpinnings were there . Video has now , largely , transitioned to IP . Our SDI plants are slowly being removed . The underpinnings were there to work in a different way , but like many things in life , you know that you should do something , but you need a kick up the backside to make us get on with that transition ,” he admits . INTERACTIVITY . “ I think , interestingly now that adoption of Cloud will grow , because , if you ’ re building that way , certainly we look to build Cloud-first now . I don ’ t see us going back to the previous ways of working , but I do see us having a challenge as to how you get that interactivity with teams between vendors , suppliers , customers . We ’ ve got to work harder at that now . That ’ s the new challenge ,” he declares “ We ’ ve all proved we can work in our own little four by four cells . But how do we interact ,
we ’ ve got to relearn some of that . Again , I thinks that a lot of the tools we ’ ve now got at our disposal will help us learn to interact and collaborate again ,” he suggests .
Research : Pandemic accelerates move towards Cloud-based production
The move towards Cloud-based production environments has been rapidly accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic , which has forced the video ecosystem to quickly shift to a new way of working , using Cloud-based production techniques to solve the physical separation of their workforce , according to the Cloud Production Technologies – Market Forecast 2021-2026 , from analyst firm Rethink Research .
The conventional thought that has dictated so many technology purchasing decisions , that all members had to be within arm ’ s reach , has been challenged by the pandemic , with Cloud and remote production proving their worth . This trial by fire has shown that new techniques can be deployed , enabling new use cases and cost efficiencies inside a typicallyconservative industry .
“ Put simply , we expect total production costs in the video industry to grow from $ 291 billion in 2020 to around $ 376 billion in 2026 ,” says Rethink Research . “ This comprises a lot of costs that are not part of Rethink ’ s usual technology focus , and so , we believe that Cloud Production revenues will rise from $ 601.87m in 2020 to $ 2.48 sbillion in 2026 . Growth is not delineated by regions , and will not be until this market has matured significantly .
According to the firm , Cloud computing is an overarching trend that is arriving in every sector of the video industry . Its uptake in production will be slower because of the prevalence of in-field production elements .
“ A raft of new technologies are taking root , which will significantly alter the production landscape – creating opportunities for those in the distribution realm to have a greater stake in the production market ,” concludes Rethink Research .
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