​For this week’s episode of the Broadcast Tech Talks Podcast, senior reporter Max Miller speaks to Warner Bros. Discovery’s director of graphics and innovation, Alex Dinnin, and Vizrt’s head of sport, Andy O’Neil, about the state of play and future of virtual studios.

The pair reveal how Warner Bros. Discovery created the TNT Sports studios from scratch, and has managed to centralise its virtual studios for Eurosport across Europe – including innovative uses of space and technology.

In addition, they discuss what’s next for virtual studios, and how advances in technology could see them become indistinguishable from real studios for viewers at home.

For this edition of the Broadcast Tech Talks Podcast, senior reporter Max Miller speaks to Azimuth head of audio Kate Davis and HHB CTO John Johnson about how AI is changing the way post-production is completed.

AI, or machine learning, has long been used in post, but recent years have seen its use grow at an increasing rate. Audio post is one of the most talked about areas for AI, with new tools that can clean up poorly recorded audio, replace dubbing by replicating an actor’s voice in another language, and more meaning that it is a hotbed for innovation.

Davis and Johnson reveal what they have already seen being done in the industry, and what could be coming in the next 12 months.

This episode of the Broadcast Tech Talks podcast series was recorded at the AI Creative Summit at BFI Southbank on 6 November 2024. It features Cyrus Mewawalla, head of thematic intelligence at GlobalData and globally-renowned AI expert and analyst. The session presents the findings of world-leading data and analytics company, GlobalData's most comprehensive and detailed report on AI to date. The report focuses on what AI means for media businesses.

E-commerce business Must Have Ideas has launched an AI-powered TV channel, and Broadcast Tech speak to co-founder and director Amy Knight plus head of Broadcast Michael Wood about how they've done this.

The channel aims to look live, while actually being 30 pre-recorded segments that were filmed in an NDI studio. These segments are automatically scheduled and stitched together by an in-house AI tool, which Must Have Ideas has named Spark, and the hope is that no two shows will look or feel the same. 

In this episode of the Broadcast Tech Talks Podcast, senior reporter Max Miller speaks to Forever Audio’s senior sound engineer Alistair Bolt and ADR manager Gabriel Dutru about the present and future of ADR.

Delving into the best techniques for the area, the pair speak about how to work with actors, directors, and producers, as well as how to prepare for ADR in production and when it works best.

In addition, the conversation turns to the future of ADR, and the tech advances, such as automation and AI cleanup services, that could have an effect on it going forwards.

The Revolutionising Post-Production podcast sees industry experts delve into the cutting-edge technologies shaping the landscape of post-production in 2024 and beyond.

From GenAI/AI-driven tools to immersive virtual reality experiences, the panel explore how these innovations are transforming content creation, enhancing efficiency, and pushing the boundaries of creative storytelling.

The panelists each predict the major tech trends for the year ahead, with a large focus on GenAI and AI. A long-list of creative functions opened up by AI are singled out, including synthetic voices; face detection and tracking; automated clip selection; productivity tools; automated transcription; metadata enrichment; audio clean-up tools; training post-production skills using AI; and the pros and cons of colour-matching tools.

This episode of the Broadcast Tech Talks Podcast was recorded at the Future of Post Production Event 2024 event Broadcast Tech and Avid held at The BFI Southbank, London earlier this year.

Rhodri James, Director of Technology and Operations, Gorilla

Lily Ketley, Technical Manager, Finish Line

Jess Nottage, Operations & Technical Director, Clear Cut Group

Craig Dwyer, Vice President Strategy, Business Development & Alliances, Avid

Moderated by Max Miller, Senior Reporter, Broadcast Tech

Tim Burgess talks to Broadcast Tech editorial director Jake Bickerton about the development of Tim's Listening Party, from Twitter/X to an Absolute Radio show to a hit podcast series. Tim also covers the influence of AI in music, and reveals he's recorded a song he asked ChatGPT to write in the style of The Charlatans. Find out more in this great episode of the Broadcast Tech Talks, which was recorded live at the Media Production & Technology show at London Olympia.

Broadcast Tech editorial director Jake Bickerton talks to president of Picture Shop, Cara Shepherd, Racoon founder David ‘Klaf’ Klafkowski and director of post production and partnership at Sky, Adam Downey, about the major issues affecting post-production right now.

The discussion covers the ongoing impact of the recent writers’ and actors’ strikes, and the potential of more strikes to follow from other sectors of the industry.

A big focus of the debate is on how post-production houses are having to adapt to deal with several major business challenges coming at once – the strikes, the commissioning slowdown, significant budget pressures, the cost of living crisis, etc.

In some cases, these have slashed workload for post houses by half. The good news is things are set to change dramatically in the second half of 2024, which could see facilities being packed out again, as discussed in this podcast.

Also discussed is how post is reacting to the growth of GenAI and automation, whether it’s a welcome change or a threat to business; whether post houses could or should accommodate the needs of the social-first generation of content creators; and ensuring data security within post-production.

This episode of the Broadcast Tech Talks podcast is a recording of the opening speaker panel discussion at the recent Future of Post Production Forum we ran in association with Avid at the BFI Southbank, London last month.

Cyrus Mewawalla, head of thematic intelligence at GlobalData explains what the future looks like for GenAI and how it won't take as long as you might imagine for AI to present with 100% accuracy, to be a sentient being with a conscience that's at least as intelligent as a human being. And that's when the future of the human race could be under threat. In terms of the immediate future, Mewawalla looks at how GenAI is already impact every segment of the media and entertainment industry, and how it's evolving fast, improving ten fold every 12 months. This short podcast makes compelling listening. It was recorded at the AI Creative Summit, held at BFI Southbank, London towards the end of 2023.

This podcast is a recording of a speaker session from the AI Creative Summit, held at BFI Southbank, London, in November.

The session, called Generative AI & the Art of Storytelling, looks at where Artificial Intelligence can push the boundaries of storytelling; how it disrupts traditional methods of conveying a narrative; and how the industry might harness generative AI and ChatGPT.

The panellists talk about how AI will be the catalyst for new forms of storytelling – bringing illustrations to life, creating immersive theatre environments, adding the ability to speak to characters in a narrative context, and more. 

Talking about their current use of AI, one of the panellists says their whole team has to use it every day, for everything from mundane tasks to generating short form video scripts, for which they say it does a great job.

The panel's use of AI includes for creating post-production deep fakes to make someone speak in different languages and recording professional-sounding voiceover from a smartphone microphone.

The panel also talks about the ability to monetise the use of AI by selling prompts to get the most out of GenAI for generating scripts, and how certain jobs in the industry including rotoscoping will likely to replaced by AI.

More specifically, one panellist says AI will not steal your jobs but people who know how to use it may.

Another panellist believes AI will eventually be better than us at making TV programmes and “might even kill us, but we might as well enjoy it while it lasts”.