Having a digital archive that is immediately accessible and easily searchable has had a big impact on BBC Northern Ireland’s research ability, both for news segments and documentary-style programming
embracing the new system more rapidly than anticipated. The implementation of Cinegy has inspired a kind of camaraderie between BBC Northern Ireland’s journalists, producers and engineers. “The interaction between the journalists and the technical people has been quite good,” notes BBC Northern Ireland Technical Lead (Digital NI) Archie Canning. “It used to be ‘them and us,’ whereas now, we’re working together as a team. It’s worked really well.”
box folder. When we open up Avid and do an import we simply look for the AAF, import it and the media’s already there. It’s virtually instantaneous.”
Changing production processes Cinegy Desktop has produced similar benefits for BBC Northern Ireland’s production unit. By providing an efficient way to ingest, log and review media, it has significantly streamlined the post production process. Now a producer can watch the digitised footage along with a transcript, and
“The interaction between the journalists and the technical people has been quite good. It used to be ‘them and us,’ whereas now, we’re working together as a team” Archie Canning, BBC Northern Ireland
Having a digital archive that is immediately accessible and easily searchable has had a big impact on BBC Northern Ireland’s ability to conduct research, both for news segments and for documentary style programming. For a recent programme on The Troubles, the long sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland, producers were able to quickly review relevant material dating back four decades. The benefits and efficiencies of a
centralised database are clear: “The producer was able to view all of that material in an easy way, and then bring it down into various packages as he saw the story emerging,” notes BBC Northern Ireland TV News Editor Angelina Fusco. “It meant that when we went to finish, we weren’t trying to locate materials, and there were no duplicate pictures. He had time to go through, look at it and edit it together. That was mind blowing.” Where Avid is still required, Cinegy
Convert has made the process of moving projects two and from craft edit suites quick and seamless. “We use a little script within Cinegy to push media out into News Avid One and News Avid Two,” says BBC Northern Ireland Technology Development Manager, Clive Jones. “It’s all pushed into a job
effectively create a visual edit rather than just a paper edit. The benefits are most evident in a production with excessive footage. “When you’re doing an
observational documentary you might be shooting for six months or a year and you could end up with 200 tapes,” notes BBC Northern Ireland Producer, Natalie Maynes. “You don’t want to bring all that into the edit. With Cinegy you can sit at your desk and get rid of all the rubbish, before you get it anywhere near the edit, so that by the time you get to the edit, you’ve really refined the footage. You don’t have to look through hours and hours of footage.”
In the end, not all the impacts of
the new workflow could have been predicted. “The workflow has been streamlined in all sorts of ways that we didn’t anticipate,” adds Technology Portfolio Manager, Kieran Morgan. “TV presenters love the system because they get an opportunity to view the material, see the ‘in points’ and the ‘out points’, whereas in a tape-based world, particularly if you’re editing right up to the beginning of the programme, presenters may not see the package before they read the piece and it goes out to air.”
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