Spanish Television tests the possibilities of cloud production at the Almagro Festival

For the second year, the Corporation presents its 'Journalism Innovation Hub' project at the Almagro Classical Theater Festival, an event that will share its infrastructure and activities with the RTVE Hub.

For second consecutive Year, Spanish Radio Television Take advantage of the celebration in Almagro of the International Classical Theater Festival to carry out innovative experiences within your project Journalism Innovation Hub.

The event, which is celebrating its 42nd edition until July 28, will share its infrastructure and activities in order to participate in the hub's objective of studying the digital transformation of news.

Different companies from the audiovisual avant-garde, such as Hispasat, Telefónica y Telefónica Audiovisual Services, Google, Watchity y VSN, collaborate with RTVE professionals in this ambitious project.

The RTVE Hub, designed by the RTVE Technology Strategy and Digital Innovation Directorate, has its main support in the RTVE Territorial Center in Castilla-La Mancha.

Its objective is the investigation of new audiovisual technologies to improve the news process. without the use of local infrastructure. Realización multicámara, production and management of content in the cloud, connections via mobile devices, cámaras 360, herramientas de metadata o streaming on social networks These are some of the experiences that will take place during the festival. It is about making these events easier to reach a greater number of viewers thanks to the study of these innovative workflows.

Jounalism Innovation Hub focuses on exploring innovative forms of communication for the transmission of news, integrating advanced networks and systems, working in the cloud in a totally different way from the traditional way and incorporating into the process the tools and possibilities offered by new technologies. It includes the entire chain that makes up the audiovisual information service, from the detection and selection of newsworthy events and the capture of the news itself, to its writing and editing, presentation, publication and, finally, subsequent archiving.

During those days there will be “observers” of the Polytechnic University of Barcelona and the Castilla-La Mancha university who participate in the 'Collaborative Communication Workshop' organized by the RTVE Institute. The objective is to promote the collaboration of people who contribute multimedia material that offers a new point of view of what happens at the festival.

Carmen Pérez, deputy director of innovation and technological strategy at RTVE, points out that "the objective of the Hub on this occasion is to test a news center that does not have any hardware locally, basing all operations on the cloud."

Spanish Television will broadcast from Almagro live through RTVE.es, and in multi-camera, three plays that will be performed in the Corral de Comedias, Patio de Fúcares and Teatro Municipal.

In addition to the live show, the three works can be seen on demand once they are broadcast. On Monday the 8th (at 10:35 p.m.) the streaming performances begin with Sor Juana Inés, with favor and disdain; On Tuesday the 9th it is Lazarillo de Tormes' turn (at 10:45 p.m.); and on Wednesday the 10th (at 8:00 p.m.) it's Traspiés' turn. Words to disappear (within the Children's Baroque Contest).

These works will be produced in an IP environment with multi-camera cloud production from a production control that will be located in Toledo, 135 kilometers from Almagro.

During this IP production, TVE will be able to observe how the systems behave, especially from the point of view of latency, with connectivity over both fiber and satellite, and 4G mobile networks (5G deployment is not yet operational in the Ciudad Real population. .

Specifically, latency last year was critical, generating some problems mainly related to audio synchronization. Now, with the improvement of technology and connectivity, it is expected that the experience will improve by having mobility bandwidth of up to 5 Mbps.

Pere Vila, director of technology, innovation and systems at RTVE, comments that “the interesting thing about this experience is seeing how cloud production technologies behave in adverse connectivity conditions. On this occasion, we want to test the possibilities offered by the return channel in terms of intercom, tally…”

In this experience, Watchity's agile video production platform is being used for the second year, which combines mobile capture, multi-camera production in the cloud and simultaneous multi-channel distribution.

As for VSN, it provides its solutions for editing, uploading and metadata, testing on this occasion the possibilities offered by artificial intelligence in terms of Speech to Text, identity recognition or automated documentation.

Hispasat's participation in the project involves the provision of space capacity of the Hispasat 30W-6 satellite through one of its managed Internet services platforms to provide live coverage in mobile journalism scenarios (Mobile Journalism). The use of satellite communications in this case is essential, since it allows guaranteeing high-capacity IP connectivity in the city of Almagro, where the terrestrial communications infrastructure and the capacity of the cellular network are not sufficient, becoming saturated during this important festival.

Other articles on Hispasat, RTVE, Telefónica, TSA, VSN, Watchity