Technology focus > Playout and automation
Digital TV Europe July/August 2010
Playout and the 3D challenge
3D-ready TV sets and HD boxes are already in people’s homes and platform operators, includ- ing Sky in the UK, are already previewing 3D home offerings. Meanwhile, 25 FIFA World Cup 2010 football matches were broadcast in 3D. Many of these were picked up internationally by movie theatres,but ESPN 3D in the US broadcast the games for home viewing, to mixed reviews. 3D is no longer just being talked about in a futur- istic sc-fi manner,it is on the brink of going mass market. Nevertheless, there are still some problems that need to be ironed out.3D is a hot topic at the moment, says Jon Try, vice president, technology of Chellomedia’s playout and content manage- ment company Digital Media Centre (DMC). The problems that arise from it don’t specifically arise from the playout, however.“For us there is not a great deal of difference between playing out HD and 3D content. The challenge is in monitoring what is delivered in a broadcast environment so that it is not stressful to watch,” says Try. “There are a number of people out there trying to devel- op tools to see what people can watch in 3D without it causing headaches or tiredness. Any misadjustments in the 3D playout chain can physically affect viewers.” The best strategy for a multi-platform playout
environment is to approach 3D as simply another format to be added to the mix,just like HD broad- casting or any other delivery format. “The busi- ness management system should enable this in such a way that 3D content can be managed and played out without requiring radical changes to existing workflows and processes,” says Geoff Hutton, chief functional architect of media man- agement software provider Pilat Media. “Over time, advertisers may be charged more for deliv- ery of 3D and HD adverts,which will require man- agement systems that can track bandwidth deliv- ery and modify billing as needed.” Synchronisation is the vital requirement.“The
left-eye and right-eye channels need to be treat- ed as one and can never go out of sync, from ini- tial acquisition through display in a consumer’s home. Broadcasters have never had to deal with this type of issue before,” says Ray Baldock, chief technology officer at broadcast and content solutions provide- Grass Valley. “With more and more content being stored as files, new formats must evolve to enable stereo 3D content to be stored, managed, archived and moved as a syn-
chronised pair of files, without any possibility of separation or mistiming. It all comes down to project and resource management.” If 3D broadcasting is to move beyond a hand- ful of major players, the cost of transmitting it, particularly live,needs to be greatly reduced says Mark Horton, product marketing manager at AmberFin. “One of the major trends recently in broad- casting is a move away from baseband video and towards file-based working. Outside of live events,much s3D broadcasting is likely to be file- based. We need to understand what that will mean,” says Horton.He says that by transmitting two non-compressed baseband 1920x1080 4:2:2 Stereo3D HD signals, throughout every stage of broadcast production, post-production via pairs of SDI cables or via 3G is technically possible (with compression happening at delivery). “For live events it may be the way forward for those with deep pockets. It will be commercially impractical,however, for some broadcasters, as it would use up significant bandwidth, burn up disc space and would risk the two signals picking up unwanted image artefacts along the way or losing sync. It would also tend towards dictating
Try: there is not much difference between playing out HD and 3D content.
and to do this effectively it is crucial that we get our multiple third-party systems to work together, particularly if the third-party software has had an update or change,” says Try. “We endeavour to make this in-house system as simple as possible. We have it so that you can select content as a list, teaming it with the requested audio and subtitles. With all this data to hand, we can then input an encoding profile into this system telling it what we want to achieve. It could be for a cable channel in Holland or a mobile channel in Switzerland, for example, and it happens as a background task.”
a traditional video-centric workflow,” he says. “Many broadcasters are now thinking along the lines of a collaborative file based s3D workflow. This has many potential advantages over base- band video workflows, in that: it’s not limited to ‘point to point’ operations; it is amenable to team working, especially using shared storage; it potentially can be accessed from anywhere there is a suitably equipped computer; it is not limited in the amount of metadata carried with the pic- tures and sound; descriptive metadata can be stored with links to the content to which it is related; and, it can use low-priced, standard IT components for movement,processing and stor- age.This kind of workflow will need a suitable file container format and the most likely candidate for that is a future development of MXF.”
The basic infrastructure of digital media is moving from dedicated devices designed specifically for broadcast operations to com- modity information technology hardware run- ning specialist software. “We have implement- ed a service-oriented architecture to co-ordi- nate discrete functional operations, providing greater flexibility and reducing the cost and risk of change,” explains Farrell at Red Bee Media. “Rather than embedding operational workflows within a central digital asset man- agement system, we use a business process management system to capture, drive and monitor the flow of media and metadata through our operation.” This approach enables Red Bee to integrate more easily with the systems of its clients and partners and to adapt to requirements as they evolve to pro- vide cost-effective media management and delivery services, says Farrell. “Storing pro- grammes as digital files in an asset manage- ment system allows flexible workflows that can proceed in parallel, improving the effi- ciency of operations by supporting rapid con- current access to material, allowing the automation and distribution of systematic tasks such as transcoding to multiple delivery formats.” Flexibility is what everyone is after at the moment, says Peter Elvidge, media services provider Globecast’s head of media solutions. “Some of our customers are considering offer- ing HD services. They haven’t committed to it yet, but they want to know that it can be easily supported in the future. They want to specify how the content is being stored and to make sure that it can be repurposed easily in the future, so that the look and the feel of the con- tent and its graphics can be easily adapted for different media outlets.”
The actual delivery mechanisms for this content need to be flexible too, says Bozza at
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