DM: We talked last month about Houston Public Media and how they’re integrating into their WheatNet IP audio facility commercial video production software, the kind typically used in government and schools (read Everyone Is Watching Houston Public Media). Why not just go down to your local electronics store and get a camera system?

FG: It’s very tempting to put in a Blackmagic switch and a couple of cameras. It’s plug-and-play and you’d be up and running and streaming to YouTube and Facebook in no time. It’s a very tempting, low-cost investment, but it’s a low return solution because you’re missing the pro element that’s going to open your station up to more platforms and visibility.

DM: Last month, you described it as a “much more professional level of production … like knowing when to cue the right graphic or clip or when to bring in the show or go to a break, all those unscripted things that happen during a live show that need a higher level of production than radio is used to.” Part of that is scripting, both in WheatNet IP and in the video production system. Another part is NDI, which is definitely coloring outside the radio studio box. I’m somewhat familiar with this connectivity standard, primarily that it is used in place of cabling to connect cameras and switches. What should we know about NDI?

FG: NDI is very effective for sending video and audio over standard Gigabit Ethernet so you don’t need cabling. NDI also handles the much higher bandwidth needed for video and audio, which is higher than audio by a factor of 10 to 100 times. Basic network wiring today runs at about one-tenth of an NDI connection as far as speed goes. We like that high-speed connection because we tend to work with several 100 MB video streams coming into the production system at the same time, and you can see how that would add up very quickly.

DM: You are doing a lot of things with Houston Public Media’s WheatNet IP system, like how consoles talk to the camera and being able to run sophisticated streams from multiple camera interactions and so forth. You also mentioned AI. Explain.

FG: What we can do with AI now is eliminate more of the mundane tasks of video production so one person can do the role of what was done by three or four in the past. As a producer/director, you don’t have to be concentrating every moment of the show. You can set up schedules and cueing and scripting, but when you are running a very unscripted program like a talk show, and you, say, need to run a certain interview now, we still need someone to make that decision as opposed to it just running as the fifth item down in a hard newscast.

At some point, we will have AI listening and interpreting the intentions of the host and be able to determine when to do those things. But no system today can look at visual input and decide, “Hey, I should get a reaction shot of guest B giggling at guest A.”

And I’ll add one more layer to this and that is, we can see how this could grow into a much more sophisticated system. We can see them creating stories and sharing stories in a cloud environment, through a Ross OverDrive-like system that you see in television production. It’s the same concept, but it’s in the cloud so it’s more affordable. We can integrate with systems for handling visual, video and program, rundowns that are independent of the typical radio automation system, but get us into more of the meat and potatoes within the show. That’s a little further down the road but very possible now.

DM: Thanks, Fritz. We’ll see you soon at the NAB show. I hope to learn more during your BEIT presentation Successfully Launching Compelling Visual Radio Automation (which starts at 9:30 am on Sunday, April 19, in N256).

For a look inside Houston Public Media’s facility, take the Tour of Houston Public Media, courtesy of our technical partners at RadioDNA.