SVG Europe Sit-Down: TV Skyline’s Wolfgang Reeh on remote production and IT/broadcast integration

Wolfgang Reeh, CEO/Founder, TV Skyline

For over 20 years, TV Skyline has worked on numerous productions that not only embrace sport, but also entertainment, music and events. In addition, it is one of the world’s leading developers and manufacturers of specialty cameras. TV Skyline is located in Mainz and the products developed by the company are manufactured in-house. The discussion with CEO/founder Wolfgang Reeh focused on the evolution of sports coverage…

Have the demands of sports broadcasters changed over the past few years?

A lot of sports productions have become more and more complex over the last few years. So today it is not the number of different cameras or EVS systems that indicates the complexity; the actual task is the increasing quantity of different signals and signal formats that has to be created and handled simultaneously.

What do you see as your biggest challenges for the next 12 months?

For us the biggest challenge will be to create a simplified workflow for combined HD/UHD/HDR productions out of one OB truck.

How do you assess the future of remote production with regards to your business?

We see a slowly growing demand on remote productions. Fortunately, we have been able to create and use our own technological workflow for some time. So, I think we are pretty well prepared for this development.

Skyline’s OB 8 UHD in use at the 24 hours race at the Nürburgring 2017

What do you anticipate will be the next innovation when it comes to IP technology?

Complex tasks and workflows will more and more be integrated, so that the productions tasks on site will be simplified.

With the continuing integration of IT and broadcast technologies, are the colleges producing engineers with the right knowledge base that will benefit OB providers like TV-Skyline?

Due to the increasing importance of IT technology in our business areas it is mandatory to train our engineers specifically in IT tasks. Looking into the future, engineers with specialised IT knowledge will be wanted even more, and this also includes the outside broadcast business.

Where do you think we will be with HDR by the end of this year?  Or should we be looking further ahead for significant take-up?

For sure, that depends on the market or region in question. However, we see this as a technology that is developing much slower than some people expected.