CNN的本·拉特纳在流媒体东部2022上谈论云和REMI制作

Tim Siglin: 欢迎回到波士顿威斯汀·科普利的2022年东部直播节目. Weather's much nicer or outside today than it was when I flew in on Sunday. Ben, you're based in New York. Is that right?

Ben Ratner: Right outta New York City.

Tim Siglin: Okay. And you're with CNN.

Ben Ratner: Yes.

Tim Siglin: And what is your focus there?

Ben Ratner: I'm a live operations manager, 所以我基本上是在为我们的很多数字节目做云直播制作.

Tim Siglin: Okay. And you were on a panel that we did a while back about hybrid workflows. Is hybrid still part of the mix of what you're doing?

Ben Ratner: 在CNN数字频道和我正在做的具体事情上，我们现在100%是云计算的. 我们遭遇了飓风和暴风雪，摧毁了两个人家里的本地电脑. So we ultimately decided it's time to be 100% cloud. 我们使用云不仅是因为它对我们需要做的事情和所有远程工作的人都很有用, 但因为我们不一定能用电脑来取代那些电脑. 这也帮助我们发现在组织中是否有其他地方可以使用这项技术.

Tim Siglin: So, REMI for the win, essentially, at this point.

Ben Ratner: We're still very much grounded in traditional on-prem tech, 但REMI有很多好处，我认为我们可以利用得更多.

Tim Siglin: Okay. Very good. So what did you speak on here at the show?

Ben Ratner: Cloud production and hybrid production.

Tim Siglin: Very good. And how do you define hybrid?

Ben Ratner: 我们在云中使用的很多工具都是可以在本地使用的软件. We were using vMix on those on-prem hurricane disaster computers. And then we just moved it to the cloud. So I think it's the right tool for the right job. There are certainly things where it's easy to work in the cloud. Just this morning, for call contribution, we used WebRTC-based tools, but there are a lot of banks, 政府机构和其他高度安全的场合不允许你使用WebRTC. 所以我们能够在两秒钟或两分钟内启动一台运行WebEx的电脑, 我们能够做到这一点，只需要切换一些NDI连接，然后收工. 这是我们无法在本地完成的，因为我需要另找一台电脑, boot it up, download NDI tools, all that fun stuff.

Tim Siglin: 我记得我在为政府机构安装视频会议系统的时候, initially the thought was just to talk amongst themselves. It turned out it was actually a really good contribution tool as well.

Ben Ratner: 有时候，在效率方面，你无法打败Zoom或WebEx或其他一些服务. There's a lot of downsides to using them. A lot of quality issues. They've gotten very, very good, to be clear, 如果没有他们，我们就不会有今天的广播——尤其是在COVID期间. But there are a lot of things where I would rather have control. There's software that gives me the ability to change their webcam, change their resolution, change their color balance, look at their actual data connection, all that stuff. So I would prefer better solutions, but ultimately we need to get the show on the air and the guest on the air. And if the guest needs us to do it this way, we can accommodate.

Tim Siglin: 我认为，在过去的两年半里，观众在一定程度上给了我们自由, three years. We understand that people may be coming us on a big show from their home. And so we sort of go, "Okay, that person's at home. 如果连接不是很好或者质量不是很好，也许没关系." But as you say, ultimately, if we're gonna carry that forward with workflows post-pandemic, we need to keep the quality up to the broadcast level.

Ben Ratner: Honestly, I think that broadcast in general or audiences in general--let's not blame the broadcasters; let's blame the audiences--have tolerated it too much and don't care enough. I think they should have a higher expectation for very good audio quality, very good video quality, very good internet. So I'd like to see across the industry a bigger focus on that. Obviously, it depends on the kind of budget you have. But sometimes a cellphone is better than a laptop. 恕我直言，我最喜欢的苹果电脑并不以网络摄像头闻名. . 所以很多时候，你的智能手机的后置摄像头会比你的MacBook要好.

Tim Siglin: To show people what he means. It's a tiny little camera right up here.

Ben Ratner: If you wanna look like you're broadcasting through a potato, use Apple.

Tim Siglin: Versus this.

Ben Ratner: It's just better. The old trope used to be, "Hey, you wanna be wired, you wanna be ethernet." I will very often now be happier with the cellphone signal. That's gonna be pretty good, if not great.

Tim Siglin: On 4g LTE or 5G.

Ben Ratner: Not on, like, 2G.

Tim Siglin: Exactly. Well, Ben, 非常感谢您的时间，非常高兴您的到来，我们很快就会迎来下一位嘉宾.