SVG Sit Down: RTS’s Michael Brown Expects Continuing Growth in Comms Reliability, Connectability
Personal devices, the cloud, and AI will have roles in the sector’s evolution
Story Highlights
Communications are the invisible infrastructure behind every broadcast-sports production. However, they have a turbulent backstory as the sector has had to navigate ever-larger and more-complex field productions, COVID-induced remote-production protocols, and relentless wireless-spectrum reductions. How the sector has responded has been a textbook case of resilience and innovation. Michael Brown, business development manager, mobile production, RTS, sat down with SVG to talk about the evolution of comms and their future.
RTS’s Michael Brown: “The pandemic forced [conventional-comms] manufacturers to improve their formats, their connectability, their capacity for the huge influx of non-technical users.
As a whole, this sector has benefited. The pandemic and the CDC guidelines, the travel restrictions, and all of that were felt worldwide, and those societal changes forced the budding technology of remote communications to prove itself, both in reliability and connectability. The pandemic forced [conventional-comms] manufacturers to improve their formats, their connectability, their capacity for the huge influx of non-technical users. I think it was very good for sports productions. COVID and subsequent CDC restrictions forced production staffs to find really creative ways that the director can be in Denver but all the production staff be at home. How are they going to be able to call a show, produce a quality show, and not be at the show? That’s where the technology really shined.
It also created an opportunity for non-traditional or non-conventional communications platforms to enter the picture.
Our RVON [VoIP] format was already in place in advance of COVID, so we had the ability to traverse the various subnets and connect coast to coast. When COVID hit, it didn’t hurt us as a manufacturer and didn’t hurt our RTS clientele because they had that ability. Where the challenge came in was with all those third-party companies and platforms that we had to integrate into the system, because their formats are proprietary. That’s where, I have to acknowledge, field production staffs [were] amazing when it came to making the [interface] magic work. Whether it’s NEP or Game Creek, generally those in the field were the ones who were forced [to adapt]. As a manufacturer, we talked to them, as we continually do, and said, Oh, is that how you did it? What a cool idea. You used a Raspberry [media-format converter], and then you inverted it from MADI to analog. We’d have never thought of that as a manufacturer, but the guys in the field are forced to do that.
And it didn’t hurt that AES67 and other protocols had come along by then, too.
Not at all.
Where do personal devices fit into the comms picture, post pandemic?
It’s an interesting topic. There’s this dividing line between those who see it and adopt it and those who, like my old self, [say] we’re not going to. But the reality is that all those formats — Galaxy end devices, Microsoft end devices, Google end devices — have to be unified somehow through some magic box. Maybe it’s the cloud, maybe it’s a piece of hardware. But until you get that, personal devices, in my opinion, are only going to be used secondarily, as an adjunct to the [primary] comms system. The critical comms are still going to be hardware-based and manufacturer-specific, because those formats are reliable, repeatable. In RTS’s case, we’ve done all the major events, so we know what works and what doesn’t. Now, if you want to add some tertiary products to that, those will be in your non-critical category. I can see a hybrid topology with end devices.
What’s the role of cloud-based connectivity for comms?
Cloud connectivity has been used by many manufacturers for years, and they’ve had mixed results. We have VLink [software intercom solution], and, although it’s very good at what it does, it inevitably has mixed results because we don’t own [or] don’t control the last mile of connectivity. That’s what phone companies do. If your cell service sucks, guess what? I personally don’t see, nor does RTS see, that as the direction we as a manufacturer are going to go. Because the first question is always: whose cloud? Who’s going to be responsible for the reliability, the connectivity? More important, who is going to be on the line and liable for the missed commercial insert when an automated update to someone else’s cloud occurs?
Sports events are expanding in scale and duration. All-star “games” are now entire weekends of televised content, covering multiple venues. How is that impacting comms-systems design and implementation?
Pre-planning and more pre-planning, and then pre-plan some more. In the initial discussion when you’re talking about venues, the first question always asked is, what is the medium? What is the connectability between the various venues? Do they have analog? Do they have SIP? If they do, what version? If they have AES67, what is that pipe? Once you’ve determined that, then you identify the scope of work of each individual user. We are partners in trying to match the specific products, be they hardwired or cloud-based, to that specific requirement. But you have to know the interconnect ability to all the other venues. That gives you the flexibility and redundancy that is crucial for pre-event, event, and post-event.
What have been some of the recent challenges of RTS’s largest broadcast-sports deployments?
Here’s a great example of a unique RTS solution from a while back that’s still very much in play today. Super Bowl XLVIII Halftime was called out of Times Square, but the game was at MetLife [Stadium in New Jersey]. All the preliminary work was done, the fiber identified between Times Square and MetLife. About a week before [the game,] Homeland Security came in and shut the fiber down. My understanding was that the physical fiber was in some way connected to a Homeland Security or FBI field office in New York City. For security purposes, they shut the entire junction down. That turned out to be a junction between MetLife and Times Square. But [RTS] was able to find and utilize RVON products to go around that because we can cross various subnets. As a manufacturer, we’re brought in routinely to help with this type of troubleshooting. Ultimately, practical problem-solving makes us a better manufacturer, and the end user gets much better product.
Will AI play a part in the future development of comms products and system design?
Oh, absolutely. AI, in its current, somewhat limited format, offers hardware and software developers, venue designers, and imagineers flexibility and creativity that we didn’t have 10, 15, 20 years ago. As AI becomes more enabling, that’s only going to benefit comms systems, designers, and manufacturers, because where we’re dreaming of [going] today — I’m talking beyond [ST] 2110 — is where AI is going to be the catalyst. Now, a whole lot of magic has to be done [before that], but AI as a format? I’m looking forward to it. It’s going to be an exciting future.
