Rai, the digital revolution and so intelligent web pixels for the match … – The Republic

CTO ZINGARELLI EXPLAINS THE PLANS VIALE MAZZINI: RENEWED CENTERS OF PRODUCTION NOW IT TO LOCAL OFFICES. MAKE TECHE browseable by SEARCH ENGINES. NEW TECHNOLOGY WILL LEAD VIDEO ULTRA HD ON DIGITAL TERRESTRIAL

Stefano Carli

U No business plan to bring Rai in one fell swoop in the digital and in the future TV: high-definition, ultra-definition, IP platforms for the production and transmission, ability to switch seamlessly from radio frequencies to fiber ultra-broadband, broadcast from the web, and from linear TV program schedules and timetables that all on-demand Netflix style. And especially with a platform that can compete, in terms of picture quality, efficiency and speed of service and delivery, with the qualitative standards that today lead the market: Netflix, precisely, and Sky. To all this he is working for a year and a half Valerio Zingarelli, head of Viale Mazzini technologies. A rrivato the final stage of Gubitosi management, Zingarelli is now to get into the operational phase of the “digital trasformation” Rai even as the new General Manager Antonio Campo Dall’Orto puts the web on top of the goals that are scanning for “his” Rai. It is managing a plan that can give two answers on many crucial issues of our television system. The first, on a mild slope as that of the frequencies: how to ferry the complicated world of the big broadcasters and local TV stations in a radio spectrum halved by the passage of the band 700 MHz to the mobile phone without a war for channels. The second, how to bring high definition “real” digital terrestrial,

which is perhaps the biggest of the rocks (along with the lack of channels) of which were dashed ambitions of Mediaset in pay TV. A plan that can tap into about 300 million specifically dedicated to investment in technology resources (113 Milini this year, 97 the next and 91 million in 2018). A complex path, which however has a necessary starting point, that is the digitization. Zingarelli explains: “Scan the Rai means doing many things: for example, the complete digitization of the great heritage of the Teche, until the complete digitization of production and distribution. In the first case we just started: in this area, in addition to “dematerialize” the physical media turning them into electronic files, it is essential “metadatare” all the tapes of our audio and video archive, not only to make movies and news, and variety theater , documentaries and TV series analyzed by search engines, but also to be able to handle very efficiently rights. It ‘a great job that will require five years and will end in 2021 “. The second horn of digitization is the replacement of the technological equipment of the production centers: four in Rome, Turin, Milan and Naples and 21 regional offices. Here we are already gradually changing cameras and control rooms, assembly stations and distribution systems, with the dematerialization of media, the abandonment of the old cassette tape and the passage of the entire working on files. “A commitment that requires high-level resources and skills and where, however, we are already well advanced. For example – Continuous Zingarelli – 75% of the regional offices is already digital, and all will be completed by 2016. The TV production centers are already virtually digitized and have been running the evolution to high definition technology and the extension ” file based “, fundamental for the complete digitalization of the apparatuses and processing procedures.” The next step is the heart of the web project. To support the ambitions of Dall’Orto Field ( “Do not worry about losing share points on linear schedules on condition of being able to recover them online”) serves a network of distribution. Which has costs. Costs that so far, the major national broadcasters, has supported almost exclusively Sky, whose SkyOnline platform allows you to watch pay-TV programs on the normal TV without feeling the difference compared to satellite reception. While Rai, who also has on paper a fairly wide range, including the possibility of reviewing online all the planning of its 14 TV channels and the previous seven days. On paper, because they have a portal that offers much is one thing. That streaming video will not then it impalli repeating is another. Problem that, for example, does not have Mediaset whose offer of “catch-up TV” (the on-demand offering and online for the past 7 days, in fact) is very limited. Because? But because they have to invest in video-servers for distribution throughout the national territory: the quality, speed, lack of expectations and interruptions are made when each user can download video files that requested not to be too far from his home. And the thing is even more complicated with the TV on the move on smarthpone, tablets and notebooks. “We are developing agreements with operators of telecommunications networks – says Zingarelli – to guarantee us more bandwidth and performance. But above all we are moving from a content distribution network (the one known as Content Delivery Network) not dedicated to a dedicated. And to do that we are discussing the technological solutions and architectures to allocate memory Rai, where to store the content for delivery to users, at their

network nodes distributed throughout the national territory, in order also to efficiently reach users. And if Enel will realize an active network as well as passive there will be a further opportunity for ultra broadband, essential for television services. ” But the biggest news coming, what promises on paper to redesign the whole scenario tv Italian, especially the halving eve of frequencies and channels available from the EU wanted to assign the 700 MHz band to mobile telephony is the new high definition: simply put a technology that will have channels in high definition even of the best 4K, but with the same occupation of the HD band today. It would be short, as if in the broadband you could have the best performance of the fiber with the old copper cable. All this is summarized in a new acronym with which we will have to become familiar with: HEVC-HDR (see box below). But to begin to understand just think that HDR is the new standard for ultra Hd already using Netflix on broadband. Yeah, but when will all this? “It ‘s all very close Zingarelli says – let’s say maximum 5-6 years, but it could be done earlier. Meanwhile, because the consumer electronics has already moved and the new TV models that all major industry brands such as Samsung, LG, Sony put on sale already are HEVC (and from 1 January 2017 there is a legal obligation in this respect), and of course compatible with all previous technologies. The total membership of the producers to the new standards will ensure that prices will fall rapidly at moderate levels. The levels of the products of medium to high-end today. There will be therefore a burden for users. The forecast on 2022 is determined by analyzing the TV installed base in Italy. Without introducing any type of grant, considering the rate of replacement of TV sets by households, by the end of 2020 the new TV HEVC will be about 30 million, more than 60% of an installed total of 47 million TV sets. Two years later, it is estimated that the TVs with the old MPEG2 standard are left very few; TVs with Mpeg4 will be about 5 million, and the rest, more than 42 million, will be HEVC ». The last part of the plan for digital Rai concerns precisely the frequencies. By June 2017, ie, within a year, the Italian government will launch the plan of reorganization of the television spectrum to free the 700 MHz band. The tv channels are now 30: 30 Mux, multiplex, because for each channel can spend more programs. Rai has not today Mux in the band 700, which instead is home to most of the other TV, from flagships such as Canale 5 and Italia 1 Mediaset, La7, or; some channels of Discovery, the Sky Sky channel but not TV8, the new generalist pay TV Murdoch. And of course many local. No longer the band 700 total channels will drop from 30 to 14. The cut will be spread over all: not only cover the broadcasters that are now in that band, but you will go to the total reallocation of available resources. Hence the allocation plan that the government has to enact. And that will lead to further investment by Rai, which can no longer refrain from putting order into its frequencies. While Mediaset fact operates on the principle of a single rate for each channel, Rai continues to act with a patchwork of pieces, so-called “patches.” It means that many channels now travel on different frequencies from region to region. And ‘why, given an estimated cost of one billion for the migration of the TV on new frequency, it is estimated that Viale Mazzini will have to bear alone the middle of this expenditure in terms of renewal of the facilities. It will therefore be a difficult but doable walk. And that has already left. In the coming months the few Italians who already have a TV HEVC will see the first experimental broadcasts. “The last stage of the Tour of Italy – enumerates Zingarelli – and, in football, the friendly Italy-Finland on June 6 will be taken with the new HDR technology, and then the quarter-finals, semi-finals and final of the European football Paris will be filmed in 4K Tivùsat and transmitted via satellite. Meanwhile, we are preparing the new terms for the production companies: it means that even before the end of the year the companies that produce films, TV series and formats for us to know how to shoot in a way compatible with the new technology. Also it will be a saving for them: an HD-HDR costs little more than a normal HD camera. The 4k is more expensive; It can reach up to 70% more. ” Bottom left, the director general of RAI Antonio Campo Dall’Orto In the picture above, the new digital studio Tg1 ENGINEER NETWORK The chief technology officer of RAI Valerio Zingarelli. Zingarelli is an engineer of tlc. He realized the Omnitel mobile network, then became manager of networks for Vodafone Group. It ‘been CEO of Babelgum TV, has worked at the technological level of the Expo and the creation of Caio Report on Broadband in Italy