feature automation & asset management
on accumulated wealth to protect itself change that has come about, so with making tools. In a world increasingly
from evolutionary pressures will only the evolutionary pressures comes the moving toward open-access media,
be delaying the inevitable, because the opportunity to adapt created by new content creators can take much greater
conditions of the market will have environmental resources. control over the origination, distribution
changed, and the ability to adapt The more manufacturers leverage and delivery of their work than ever
quickly will be at a premium. The old iTX is a very the benefits of general-purpose before, and without compromising
paradigm of rigid equivalence between technologies for broadcast and media- quality standards. The large, traditional
appropriate
a particular task and a particular piece specific applications, the more they will structures that have controlled the
solution for
of equipment for it will be impossible provide the means to adapt, survive media industry will need to respond
our times:
to sustain. Manufacturers and and even grow stronger in these and embrace these developments.
broadcasters alike will need to do
when the
challenging conditions. At OmniBus, our Mammals were able to evolve
things differently. To take a specific
same system
own approach as a manufacturer is an through the environmental crisis that
scenario, it will no longer be example: the software-based iTX made dinosaurs and other highlyfits the
appropriate for the chief engineer of a production and transmission platform specialised life forms extinct because
needs of a
smaller broadcaster to buy a vision makes it possible for broadcasters and they were small, agile, and could
single-
mixer because he likes that product or content owners to be far more flexible adapt to changing temperatures. What
the company that supplies it, then
channel
and agile in creating and launching we are now entering is an
choose a video server and the other
broadcaster
new services, while being much more evolutionary bottleneck in our industry
components to go with it, ending by
in
cost-effective than the previous era’s that is squeezing down the wide
asking an automation company to technology. iTX is a very appropriate variety of specialised systems and
Afghanistan,
come and make it all work as a system solution for our times: when the same working methods that have arisen in
and powers
six months later. That model is no system fits the needs of a single- times of plenty: out of it will grow a
the very
longer viable because the broadcaster’s channel broadcaster in Afghanistan, and new breed of systems with a more
commercial arm will increasingly be
large
powers the very large multichannel survivable technology base for the
faced with changing market situations
multichannel
installation of a US operator launching industry, and new adaptable working
that it needs to respond to rapidly: it the first high-end 1080p/24 broadcast methods based on them. installation
could be the need to meet a sudden services, that’s an indicator of just how We’ve seen other industries such as
of a US
demand for HD channels, or to fill a versatile the technology is. print and publishing go through this
operator
hole in the market with a new kind of Everywhere, file-based technologies cycle, and it takes the application of
cookery channel. It is going to want to
launching
are rapidly dissolving many of the serious external pressures for it to
respond within weeks, not months,
the first
restrictions and limits imposed by the happen. In the case of the broadcast
and keep responding as opportunities
high-end
‘traditional’ equipment of the industry, the pressure is financial:
and pressures continue to change. If broadcaster and film-maker. There are while the opportunities arise through
1080p/24
the engineering department and its implications not just for the engineers the diversification of audiences and
broadcast
infrastructure is unable to meet this here: working practices, organisational viewing habits. Broadcasters still have
services,
challenge, the broadcaster will miss structures and revenue models are to launch channels and get new
those commercial opportunities -
that’s an
built around the technologies, and services on air - and under the
ultimately with predictable results.
indicator of
when technologies change, the shape widespread commercial pressures the
The environmental pressure to of the organisation is going to change world now faces, it becomes evenjust how
develop and launch new services is too. Once again, this can be seen as a more important for them to innovate
versatile the
intense because of the unprecedented threat, or as an opportunity. The for survival in a difficult market.
technology
challenge broadcasters and media director Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Broadcasters have to save money, and
organisations face in a climate of rapid
is.
Vegas) spoke recently at London’s do more with less: and that's exactly
diversification. As viewers, we are Institute of Contemporary Arts about what the most adaptable
accessing and consuming content in the liberating and democratising manufacturers are giving them the
many different ways now: IPTV, VOD, potential of the new digital film- tools to do.
mobile TV, YouTube, iTunes, and
services such as the BBC’s iPlayer and
AT&T’s U-verse are really just the early
features of this diversified landscape.
It would be unkind to suggest that
the era of task-specialised kit is
equivalent to the Jurassic period, with
its dinosaurs and the connotations of
obsolescence. Developing and using
specialised hardware for each task in The software-based
the broadcasting process was the only
iTX production and
transmission
viable way of building the standard of
platform makes it
television and radio services we now possible for
take for granted. There was simply no
broadcasters and
content owners to
alternative until quite recently, when
be far more flexible
the performance and reliability of
and agile in
standard IT hardware, combined with
creating and
launching new
file-based methods of moving and services, while
storing content, have created a much
being much more
cost-effective than
more flexible environment. But over
the previous era’s
the past 10 years or so, that’s the technology.
22 l ibe l march/april 2009 l www.ibeweb.com
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