Last year, Panasonic announced the KAIROS Training Academy Network Panasonic to train operators to get the best from its live production platform. KAIROS offers an open software architecture system for video switching. The academies have been created in partnership with partners across Europe and the UK including Creative Technology (London and Sweden), AED (Belgium), VMB (Spain),KST Moschkau and Lang (Germany) with a number still in the pipeline.
“We believe those trained in our products and solutions are more likely to use them,” began Panasonic Connect Product Marketing Manager, Anna Arkatova. “We regularly host in-person and virtual training sessions with partners and end-users.”
This continued to be the case following the release of KAIROS. “We want operators and directors to push KAIROS to its limits and unlock more creative possibilities. We approached a number of partners to set up training academies in their offices, so that people can get hands-on with KAIROS.”
Arkatova highlighted the key features of KAIROS, such as Creator, the platform’s Graphic User Interface, which enables the management of an unlimited number of video layers. “Creator has been designed to enable directors and vision mixers with varied levels of experience to be able to deliver engaging content or set-up complex systems with limited training time,” Arkatova commented.
KAIROS is not just a conventional vision mixer but utilises a variety of IT ecosystems based on COTS technology, with expandable functions and links to external devices. As a result, while in its most basic of configuration it supports IP video switching, it also has the capability to sit at the centre of a live production as a pixel processor or screen manager and cover all functions with a latency of just a single frame.
Creative Technology’s Sam Hatcher discussed some of the UK-based training sessions. “We have trained KAIROS operators for Tokyo 2020, Beijing 2022 as well as trained freelance technical directors, video engineers and operators at Creative Technology.”
Participants of the training sessions can expect to learn about the “revolutionary ecosystem” offered by KAIROS. “We enable those that join the training sessions to have a greater understanding of how a software-defined switcher differs from more traditional options,” he stated.
Hatcher continued to explain how during the sessions, attendees were given an overview of the “Photoshop-style” graphic user interface, and then encouraged those undertaking the course to get stuck into a range of self-lead tasks that show you how to configure and operate the many features offered by KAIROS.
“I’m convinced that with these new IT platforms like KAIROS we can be a lot more flexible in the future with remote production,” Thierry Heldenbergh, Managing Director, AED Display at AED Group commented.
“The new transitions to IP platforms is really important because we strongly believe that will be the future, not only for events but also in fixed installations,” Heldenbergh said. “In this aspect training is very important as we need operators that feel confident about the system and feel at ease.”
This article originally appeared in issue #267 of TPi.
