40 TVBEurope The Workflow Cracking the file barrier
The UK is way out ahead of the rest of Europe in terms of file-based programme delivery, thanks to the cross-broadcaster Digital Production Partnership (DPP).Adrian Penningtonlearns why and what’s next
LAST JANUARY, BBC, ITV and Channel 4 together with Sky, Channel 5, S4C and UKTV agreed the UK’s first common file format, structure and wrapper to enable TV programme delivery by digital file. Emmerdale became the first major UK production to adopt the new international AS-11 standard for HD delivery in October and the Sunset & Vine- produced America’s Cup programming for C4 was the first to use its metadata application, which is wrapped into the programme file. Trials will build throughout 2013 including those by ITV for Coronation Street and by Endemol for C4’s Deal or No Deal. With technical guidelines based on MPEG-4 for live production now on release, Channel 4’s new year racing coverage, produced by IMG Sports Media and supplied by NEP Visions (see page 38), will be among the first to action it. Post production facilities are also piloting DPP deliverables with broadcasters in the next few months. “We are assessing various systems to enable us to achieve AS-11 delivery including
“There’s already quite a demand from a couple of the studios to deliver by file for cost reasons,” explains one of the DPP’s architects, Kevin Burrows, CTO Broadcast and Distribution, Channel 4 and chair of the DPP Technical Standards working group. Broadcasters overseas have pricked up their ears. “We’ve
The final Master for delivery in the UK is currently predominantly on tape, and HDCAM SR is the format of choice for HD commissions from major UK broadcasters. But the DPP’s principal backers — ITV, BBC and Channel 4 — have agreed that delivery on file will be preferred by 2014.
transport them. The latter is considered a minor hitch, hence the delay until 2014.
Signiant and Aspera Broadcasters have adopted accelerated, file delivery over IP networks to a significant extent over the past five years, where such technology is cheaper than tape traffic, and
Kevin Burrows: “Files will never be as easy as tape but by trying to standardise we are trying to avoid the interoperability issues which plague us all”
automated QC/FPA analysis and metadata insertion for final delivery,” says Envy Senior Engineer Adam Davies.
International acceptance The DPP is also talking with US studios about adopting a version of the spec. Talks are advanced, not least because US body Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA) worked with the DPP to create AS-11.
From MXF to DPP
Comments from Bruce Devlin, chief technology officer at AmberFin and co-author of the original MXF specification
The original purpose of the group of individuals and organisations that created the MXF specification was to make a file format for the media industry that addressed the needs of the industry in a way that would provide a work- horse for years to come without being the intellectual property of a single vendor. Years of work took place and the number of contributors dwindled from hundreds in the early days contributing requirements and great ideas to the pool; down to a mere 10-20 dedicated vendors at the end of the process, refining and developing the standard until it reached its goals. At the end of 2004, SMPTE published the MXF standard,
but no-one spotted that all the end users had gone back to their day jobs at the time of publication and the first batch of product was launched by the vendor community using the MXF toolbox in a way that favoured that particular vendor. No one is to blame for this – it is a natural consequence of trying to do something difficult in an open forum. Over the next few years, the MXF standard started to lose some of its appeal as interoperability problems prevented complex systems from ‘just working’. Some people within AMWA pointed out that MXF would be better if we worked out what media business problem was being solved with the MXF toolbox. These people worked
away with forward thinking members of the end user community and a range of application specification were created. The application might be for direct-server playout, or versioning or interchange of mezzanines or exchange of advert metadata. These were (and still are) business problems with a technical solution called MXF. Not unsurprisingly, these business problems were the same ones that were first put forward a decade ago when MXF was being designed. The Digital Production
Partnership (DPP) is perhaps the first of these Application Specifications to receive national scale adoption. It certainly won’t be the last. DPP provides a framework that enables the UK industry to come together and share best practice in digital production
and help producers and broadcasters maximise the potential of the digital revolution. Also, it leads the standardisation of technical and metadata requirements within the UK, helping to ensure digital video content can be easily and cost-effectively distributed to audiences via multiple platforms. A leading technology
contributor to the DPP initiative, AmberFin is the first vendor to introduce a DPP specific media file transcoder and ingest workstation. Designated iCR- 100-DPP (transcoder) and iCR-300-DPP
Bruce Devlin: Some people within AMWA pointed out that MXF would be better if we worked out what media business problem was being solved
(media ingest workstation), these new products reflect AmberFin’s aim of addressing the broadest range of media organisations with enterprise level solutions that are designed to meet their specific business needs. In the UK, these products are available through AmberFin’s channel partner ATG Broadcast.
Aside from ramping up the pilots, the DPP will next address loudness. “We want to get a revised spec in place for Q1. We’re complying with EBU R128 loudness metering”
had enquires from France and Germany and the EBU who are interested in adapting what we are doing,” he says. “If a company is already standardised on XDCAM there’s a cost and time to change implication in moving away from that. Some have already taken the leap in quality, but it’s the standard way we have treated metadata which is a significant step ahead of the game.”
“We cannot mandate 100% [the BBC charter wouldn’t allow it for one thing] but we expect 98% of companies to be able to do so,” says Burrows. To create DPP-compliant files all the producer or post house require is technology suitable for generating AVC Intra 100Mbps files, which the latest models of Avid and FCP (launched in December) will do, along with transcoders and the means to
www.tvbeurope.com January 2013
Kevin Burrows, Channel 4
also faster and more secure than methods such as FTP. Solutions from Signiant and Aspera are, however, not yet pervasive outside of broadcasters, some distributors and the larger production and post companies, so in the near term the most common form of file-based delivery is likely to be removable drive. “While this may make commercial and logistical sense
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52