24TVBEurope
www.tvbeurope.com July2012
Automated QC for file-based workflows at ITV
ITV HAS MADE the move to file-based workflows and needed a QC solution to support that, explained Luan Thompson, lead strategist for Content Management, ITV. Last September ITV started
a three-month project to create a Content Publishing Platform (CPP). During that tight timeframe, the broadcaster needed to prove it could take content from its flagship soap operas Emmerdale and Coronation Street and deliver those to its transmission partner Technicolor for video- on-demand both on
ITV.com and for its partners. “It is designed to take completed programmes straight out of the edit suite and production as part of their strategic transformation, particularly targeting high definition programmes where the cost of moving HD programmes around on tape is very substantial — especially when you need to buy a lot of equipment,” Thompson explained. ITV has put a network in place specifically designed to handle media content, a 10Gb pipe linking sites in
Luan Thompson and Paula Bargery present to the ITBW audience
Leaving the horror but keeping the reality in Chello Zone operations
CHELLO ZONE in London, part of Chello Media, looks after 12 TV brands ranging from reality TV, drama and soap operas to cooking and lifestyle channels. Between the 12 channels, Chello Zone transmits 23 feeds in 25 languages. “Every year we receive about 8,000 new hours of content which generates 70,000-80,000 video and language components depending on the complexity of the feeds,” explained Andreea Buga, vice president Operations, Chello Zone.
acquisition to playout management,” she explained. Buga said Chello Zone wasn’t looking for “one all-singing all- dancing off-the-shelf solution but something that would start small and gradually increase as needed.” Chello Zone had encountered Provys through its UK playout centre Arqiva, which was using Provys for library and scheduling. Daniel Stourac, Key Account
manager for Provys, explained the system: “It handles all the operations that a broadcaster
workflows bring in terms of QC. We offer a mechanism whereby QC operators within customer companies can easily review and manage the results of QC testing tools, irrespective of the supplier of that automated QC solution,” she said.
Thompson said AmberFin’s solutions had “proven to be a great tool in the centre for us, particularly around high
does a QC and it passes, the MXF file gets sent to the broadcaster and it passes, it then moves on to playout and it fails.” This poses several questions: Can QC tests be standardised enough for consistent results? How do we ensure that QC standards operate across the complete workflow? Can we avoid the time and cost of repeatedly testing content?
“We’re lab testing various equipment and looking to develop a common terminology for automated QC. We’re also looking at how we might create a common reporting format”
Manchester, Leeds and London. “It’s currently live with Coronation Street and Emmerdale and we’ll look at other productions as appropriate,” he revealed. The CPP consists of three major technology components: Marquis Medway with Avid post integration, AmberFin’s iCR for ingest, QC and transcode, and Telestream Vantage for mass transcode for distribution. AmberFin’s Paula Bargery, VP Sales EMEA, explained how its Unified Quality Control (UQC) system, purchased by ITV last year, fits into the equation to support the file- based workflow. “UQC is a different and unique approach, certainly by a manufacturer, to try to support customers with the challenges that file-based
quality transcoding and ensuring we can create broadcast quality transcoding.” In more general terms, he
moved on to discuss file-based QC issues facing the broadcast industry. So what’s the good news? There are more manufacturers in the sector, more choice and costs are coming down. But the bad news is that the tools are all different. There are different test approaches and algorithms, overlapping sets of tests, different terminology, lots of configurations and various report formats.
Another challenge is the
multi QC problem, said Thompson. “In our workflows, production is creating programmes, they send it to us [the broadcaster] and we may send it to our transmission playout provider. Production
Chello Zone team: Andrzej Lupa, Martin Turnbull, Cei Morris and (speaker) Andreea Buga at the Networking Drinks event
Luan Thompson, ITV
ITV is currently working with other broadcasters as part of The Digital Production Partnership [see June issue News, page 3] in a technical working group together with the EBU. “We’re lab testing various equipment and we’re looking to develop a common terminology for automated QC. We’re also looking at how we might create a common reporting format,” he said. Further development
involves looking at certification to avoid multiple QC tests and to speed up workflows. “Automated file-based QC is absolutely essential. But there’s a lack of standards around file-based QC and inconsistent results. We must tackle this somehow to make it manageable and cost effective.” — Melanie Dayasena-Lowe
For a channel like Extreme Sports transmitting with one HD and three SD feeds from three playout centres, the process is quite complex. It involves an acquisition manager trying to licence programmes across as many countries as possible. It also involves four channel managers working with a shared library of content, picking and mixing according to the territory they look after. To cope with these busy
workflows, Chello Zone needed a solid planning solution. “We started by defining our challenges. We had a variety of Excel documents keeping separate information about rights, programme assets etc. We wanted one single system to track our programme assets throughout their whole journey with Chello Zone from
needs in the back office — rights management, advertisement sales, production management — everything that’s not visible to viewers but that is critical to the success of a broadcaster. “In 2002 Arqiva introduced us to Chello Zone which was starting its first UK channel. I met Andreea who helped transform the station from a simple tape-based operation to a modern tapeless operation,” he said.
Chello Zone decided to grow the system according to its own needs. “In 2007 we started to implement a rights management and programme planning module. It involved importing rights and transmission information into Provys and enabled our channel managers to plan their monthly grids into Provys benefiting from instant
“We are at the point where we’re ready to start linking our physical assets to the records in Provys — so we can introduce more steps of automation” Andreea Buga, Chello Zone
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