special report media asset management
Within international news operations, the management of assets encompasses more than the acquisition, editing, processing and provisioning of media content. Although paramount in the production of a news item, the management of the content is dependent on so many other elements within the overall news workflow. Robert J Kernot, technical consultant - media and communications at Colem-Spice, reports.
MAM: it’s not just media T
he initial step within a newsroom is to plan the coverage. In an international operation this will take place globally, regionally and locally. The planning will be carried out in advance for known news events and longer term coverage, and on the day for breaking news and updates to scheduled coverage. There will be news items of interest for different channels/markets, all of which will demand different personnel and equipment considerations. Advanced and on-the-day planning diaries are assets that must be accessible and maintainable by all involved in the production of the news items for each channel.
When planning coverage, account must be taken of the assets available at local and regional bureaus, and at international broadcast centres. For example, do they have broadcast, mid- range, and/or prosumer cameras? Do they have staff and freelance accessible camera personnel, and/or video-journalists? Coverage of a demonstration, a sports event, a head- and-shoulders interview, a
documentary, will dictate the need for different capabilities in terms of acquisition equipment and personnel. Is it necessary to bring in equipment and personnel to meet the coverage needs? There will be different communication system capabilities available for news contribution feeds. Major bureaus will have line feeds, and most bureaus have high speed Internet access to enable fast file transfer of stories, but in some instances it may be necessary to ship in satellite news gathering terminals and/or BGAN terminals, eg for live feeds or for fast delivery from the field. Usage of satellite terminal assets and satellite bandwidth demand can be optimised by introducing dynamic bandwidth scheduling and intelligent remote control.
60 l ibe l march/april 2011 l
www.ibeweb.com In the field Asset
management in a news environment means empowering the whole organisation, adopting common, open
standard processes, automated, rules based workflows, access to a rich media repository, and an IT infrastructure that meets and does not inhibit the demands of a modern broadcast market.
Field editing of content is essential to reduce the ‘handling-time’ from shoot to delivery. Assets such as robust, high performance laptops, editing applications compatible with bureau editing, compression and fast-file- transfer applications, and high-speed accessible storage, are essential to meet the modern news demands. Associated metadata from the field is an invaluable asset for the news channel producers deciding on the usability of the item, and the processing needs for the different channels. Low resolution proxy of the shot material, along with the metadata, can enable remote editing, which will reduce both contribution time and bandwidth demand. Once a news item has been created then decisions are required as to the value and usability of this content asset. Is it of interest for global, regional, and/or local markets, is it of interest to more than one news channel, is it to be distributed to customers over multiple platforms, is it to be linked to other media content, will it have a longer term value and thus should be archived? Many of these decisions are made by the news channel producers reviewing each news asset as it arrives, but they are supported by sales and marketing who know the customer needs, by legal who know the rights constraints, by the graphic artists who can enhance the item, and by the channel editors who will edit the final piece. With each process the original field metadata needs enrichment with inputs from these different areas. The attachment and maintenance of rich metadata is essential to automate the repurposing and tracking of the news asset, and to enable common processes for multi- platform provisioning rather than functional silos.
Future-proof
The media assets should be shot and stored at the highest quality economically feasible, ideally at HD. This will ensure that for future usage any archived content will meet the progressive quality demands from different platforms. Today’s cameras will shoot HD and provide SD or a proxy for editing purposes. Whilst SD is still the primary client output, shooting in HD places demands on the acquisition, editing, and processing of the asset. HD operation also places new demands on the news network IT comms infrastructures within and between bureaus. With automated processing of ingested material, and rules based processing dependent on the integrity of the metadata, automated quality control checking becomes an essential tool to ensure fast fault finding. Having edited, processed and distributed the news item to different platforms, the short term value of the original asset, its future value, and its location, are considerations for the realisation of the archival approach, especially within a global news business. The metadata for each news asset contains source data, and with sufficient search and archival decision data, a distributed archival storage approach can provide more value to the re-use of the content asset. With file based operation, common fast accessible storage, and high speed comms, a distributed search and retrieval process negates the need for central storage archiving. Asset management in a news environment means empowering the whole organisation, adopting common, open standard processes, automated, rules based workflows, access to a rich media repository, and an IT infrastructure that meets and does not inhibit the demands of a modern broadcast market.
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