RITA's Broadcasting Model - what's the real story?

[Bill]

5 hours ago, Chief Stipe said:

There is only one part of that frame of equipment that needs to be permanent.

Here are some pictures:

 

This is what they call an FTTH - Fibre To The Home which is a little bit of a misnomer as it is essentially a Fibre Termination Unit and comes in variety of flavours depending on the installation (FTTX).  They are the cheapest part of a fibre network.  They ALL do essentially the same thing terminating the yellow cable (the fibre) into a connector that a splitter device can connect into.  Which in the home is a mini router which enables a connection to Wi-Fi or ethernet cable.  For a business it would be a router that can vary in size from 8 ports to as many as 58 ports.  A 58 port router is about the size of a pizza box. The FTTH is not much bigger than the size of my hand.  The FTTH costs $3.

 

 

The second picture is of a more sophisticated FTTX.  It splits the incoming fibre into multiple fibre connections which enables direct fibre connectivity to multiple devices.  Costs about $90.  Not really necessary for our racetrack installations.  This unit is about the size of your average hard copy novel.

Now the rest of the equipment is moveable.  So all the lights you see flashing 24/7 at Te Rapa can be installed in a moveable unit as at the end of the day all the pieces of equipment aggregate to one or maybe two pieces of fibre. 

Why have they chosen to make it permanent at Te Rapa?  Well it is in the vendors interests for a start.  It earns them more money.  For every location that they install this they sell you more and more kit (equipment).  They charge you maintenance fees, they hook in a high level Service Level Agreement (SLA), they charge you for each MAC's (Moves, Adds, Changes) and on and on and on.  

Oh and don't forget they charge you 24/7 for the top of the line network connection whether you use it or not.  I hope Te Rapa are using that connection for their normal business and paying for it.

The in house IT team love it because they can be lazy - if something goes wrong they can ring up the vendor and log a fault.  "Yes boss we are onto it - we have logged a Priority One fault with Spark."

 

The only piece of equipment that needs to stay there is the FTTH(x).  The rest of the kit could be put in a Suzuki Swift and all you would need is a couple of cables from the FTTH and a couple more to the broadcast van and a power lead.  Done and dusted!

How do I know this?  Because I've done it.  Setting up a pop-up store - plug and sell.

In actual fact the technology is here now to not even need the permanent fibre connection.  How do you think they stream live high definition video from the America's Cup boats to your TV screen?  The cameras are not connected to satellites I assure you.  Or the high definition drone vision?  Sorry but only the military can afford satellite connected drones.

With the pop-up store configuration we did that 3 years ago.  Even then there was technology to enable the use of 4G wireless connectivity.  

As for Waikato Stadium or Eden Park - well their business model can probably justify a dedicated circuit.  Eden Park for example has 41 full time employees and they have other on site activities during the year that would justify the cost.

I appreciate what your cousin has told you.  As most BOAYer's would confirm I don't normally talk about what I've done in life as I'm quite private about that.  In that respect it has been posted on other forums that I've never been very involved in racing.  I haven't bothered to defend that.  But with this issue that we are debating now...well it has touched a sore point, scratched a festering scab.

I've worked in IT for 33 years.  At one stage I worked for Telecom (Spark) and had a $90m dollar budget.  I was responsible for ensuring capacity and implementation of innovation in New Zealand's data network at a time when 90% of NZ's data traversed the Telecom network.  I'm maybe viewed as too old in the industry now but in terms of innovation and using new technology I'd back myself to go head to head with any young buck.  Not only that I've walked the walk.

For me technology has been a passion and an innate skill that I discovered by chance.  My career started out in Horticultural Science.  Another passion in life has been horse racing - it started with harness and latterly thoroughbreds.  When I see the BS that is being spouted to justify what I see as a hidden agenda I really get wound up.  So excuse me Bill.

PS:  RITA give me a call.  Happy to consult and sort your IT out.

It got nothing to do with the amount of employees eden park or te rapa might have.

because they are not allowed to use that.

the fibre circuit is for broadcast video and audio only. Next time you are on track, ask one of the trackside guys like I have. It is a dedicated broadcast circuit for rita/tab to send their feed to the studio from the broadcast truck via the vendors network. And it is available for their use 24/7. All the greyhound venues have it too so i am told. Google sdi fibre broadcast transmission

as for those pictures, yes i have one of those in my house that my router is connected too. 

 

[Chief Stipe]

59 minutes ago, Bill said:

It got nothing to do with the amount of employees eden park or te rapa might have.

because they are not allowed to use that.

the fibre circuit is for broadcast video and audio only. Next time you are on track, ask one of the trackside guys like I have. It is a dedicated broadcast circuit for rita/tab to send their feed to the studio from the broadcast truck via the vendors network. And it is available for their use 24/7. All the greyhound venues have it too so i am told. Google sdi fibre broadcast transmission

as for those pictures, yes i have one of those in my house that my router is connected too. 

 

SDI is just a video protocol.  At the end of the day it still traverses the same fibre network as any other protocol.  You still connect into the same fibre termination device.  I won't bore you with details on network transport protocols.  I concede if they use SDI then they might need something larger than Suzuki Swift - maybe a Great China panel van.

However SDI is costly and largely proprietary in its implementation.  No wonder RITA is broke. It also raises questions about the deal they did with that outfit owned by Windsor Park and what's his name Randall.

SDI is great if you want to deliver HD TV but how many of the target market have the right TV to view it in HD and how many of that market have good enough eyesight to tell the difference.

The point is there are other cheaper and equally effective technologies to do live broadcasts from anywhere in the country rather than a select few racetracks.

Finally when you say "dedicated circuit" don't think that it is something special like physically a single piece of fibre of from Te Rapa to the studio.  It isn't.  It is defined logically by software that dedicates a certain level of bandwidth availability at a committed information rate i.e. it guarantees that you will get the bandwidth you require.  BUT you still use the same fibre infrastructure and the Telco makes more money by selling that bandwidth many times over to others when you are not using it.

 

[Bill]

1 hour ago, Chief Stipe said:

SDI is just a video protocol.  At the end of the day it still traverses the same fibre network as any other protocol.  You still connect into the same fibre termination device.  I won't bore you with details on network transport protocols.  I concede if they use SDI then they might need something larger than Suzuki Swift - maybe a Great China panel van.

However SDI is costly and largely proprietary in its implementation.  No wonder RITA is broke. It also raises questions about the deal they did with that outfit owned by Windsor Park and what's his name Randall.

SDI is great if you want to deliver HD TV but how many of the target market have the right TV to view it in HD and how many of that market have good enough eyesight to tell the difference.

The point is there are other cheaper and equally effective technologies to do live broadcasts from anywhere in the country rather than a select few racetracks.

Finally when you say "dedicated circuit" don't think that it is something special like physically a single piece of fibre of from Te Rapa to the studio.  It isn't.  It is defined logically by software that dedicates a certain level of bandwidth availability at a committed information rate i.e. it guarantees that you will get the bandwidth you require.  BUT you still use the same fibre infrastructure and the Telco makes more money by selling that bandwidth many times over to others when you are not using it.

 

Yes well that outfit that ran the studio in parnell called nz live was sold to broadcasting conglomerate NEP and judging by an article on stuff recently sky are going to hock their broadcast fleet off to them as well. Sky brought the fleet from the bloke who started nz live. He was just there to make a quick buck and the nzrb at the time, Bayliss/Broomhall took it hook line and sinker. Useless pricks. 
 

no definitely not one single bit of fibre, but that’s how it is described as a “circuit” - at the end if the day, it is obviously cheaper to do that rather than booking satellite spots for tracks that have regular meetings. If you think Addington holds sometimes three meetings a week between harness & dishlickers, satellite would be an expensive way of transmission

[Chief Stipe]

15 hours ago, Bill said:

no definitely not one single bit of fibre, but that’s how it is described as a “circuit” - at the end if the day, it is obviously cheaper to do that rather than booking satellite spots for tracks that have regular meetings. If you think Addington holds sometimes three meetings a week between harness & dishlickers, satellite would be an expensive way of transmission

Doesn't matter if it is one or two or more bits of fibre.  Still nothing special about the fibre nor the circuit.

I haven't argued about satellite transmission however if the sums are done you may well find a different answer.  A permanent SDI circuit which has very very high bandwidth requirements and the SDI protocol does not have data compression would cost a significant amount a year.

The point I'm labouring to make is there are far cheaper options that SDI that were serve the purpose of NZ racing and that is delivering races to the masses from ALL our tracks not just the elite.  BTW it is the former that have been subsidising the latter.

Tell me what do they do in Australia for their bush tracks that they broadcast?  

[Chief Stipe]

I've been in a bit of a discussion with BOAY'er Bill about why the venues that are opening for racing NEED to have fibre optic connected.  I think this is what you would call a "non-tariff trade barrier".  That is it is a decree from the central organisation to stop provincial tracks from racing which doesn't have any valid reason for it.

So I've moved the posts relevant to this topic to its own separate topic.  I think it is important as it shows where the industry money has been wasted and has actually reduced the market by excluding punters from seeing racing.

[Chief Stipe]

I had just had a squiz AGAIN at the last RITA annual report.  Broadcasting expenses were $9m out of $143m total.  Why is Broadcasting touted as a reason for NOT having races at clubs other than those that have high cost SDI dedicated fibre circuits?

Bear in mind that $9m is less $1m of revenue.  Trackside is no longer free to air.

[Chief Stipe]

What I can't understand about the why they are installing the technology that they are is it is designed to capture and broadcast HD formats.  Most of the population don't have the technology, bandwidth or eyesight to see HD 4k broadcasting.  Hence TVNZ and SKY don't broadcast it.

As a racing enthusiast I'm not interested in seeing the nails in the hooves of my bet nor the brand name of the blinkers that are being used.  I just want to see my horse during the race and who crosses the line first.

What's more I'm not interested in viewing the race on my smart phone in HD if it means I have huge buffering problems and I only see the race every 200m.

 

[Freda]

I think your ' non -tariff trade barrier '  sounded about right.

[Chief Stipe]

Just now, Freda said:

I think your ' non -tariff trade barrier '  sounded about right.

You are obviously and educated woman Freda.

It's bullshit that's what it is!

[Guest Whyisit]

If you go back to the Select Committee Hearings you get a drift from one or two of the Committee members angling to those Cliubs still having their race meetings without the TV etc . Just a day out for the community and forfilling the clubs wishes to have a race meeting without closing them down.

[Chief Stipe]

21 minutes ago, Whyisit said:

Committee members angling to those Cliubs still having their race meetings without the TV etc

They don't need to do that.  Broadcasting race meetings is not that expensive.  You'll find that provincial meetings still fund the big race meetings at the Centres.

[Guest Whyisit]

3 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

They don't need to do that.  Broadcasting race meetings is not that expensive.  You'll find that provincial meetings still fund the big race meetings at the Centres.

Yeah but they will use it as an excuse not to service the clubs they don’t want racing.

[Chief Stipe]

1 minute ago, Whyisit said:

Yeah but they will use it as an excuse not to service the clubs they don’t want racing.

Yes they will try to do that.  But with a community like BOAY and the expertise that we have we will make it clear that they are talking bull shit.  That is we can keep them honest.

At the end of the day what would you rather have 135 people on $100k plus per year for a total of $18m or spend $9m for broadcasting?