August 2013 www.tvbeurope.com


BBC, ITV and C4 expect all content to be delivered as DPP-compliant AS11 files before end of next year


support AVCI or multichannel audio. “We worked with AMWA to add the functionality we needed, which took around nine months,” Burrows said. “The result is AS11.” Given that this was a new file structure which the DPP wanted to propagate throughout the UK industry as quickly as possible, the team commissioned an app which will take in any AVCI file and put it into an AS11 wrapper. The structure has around 60 fields in its metadata schema, technical and production. In response to a question


from the floor, Burrows admitted that the standard is being updated, but insisted that there will be no major changes. The next version, for example, will add metadata around EBU Rec-128 loudness levels, and a future update will include Dolby metadata. “Quite a few [production] companies are keen to take it up,” he said. “If you are setting up today, you are not going to want to spend £60k on an SR machine.” The advantage of the DPP,


formed by the leading broadcasters in the UK, is that it can push proposals like this very hard indeed. Details of when this will be regarded as the mandatory delivery method are likely to be announced around IBC, but the clear indication from the panel is that the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 will be expecting all


content to be delivered as a DPP-compliant AS11 file before the end of next year. “We now have to get over the line and say we have to have file delivery,” ITV’s Tennant stated. “As broadcasters we cannot put the maximum amount of money on screen if we are still having to paddle frantically beneath the surface to manage different inputs.” As part of the process,


broadcasters are also going to be expecting files arriving which already have the quality checks performed, with trusted suppliers providing self-certification. “I think we should be delivering a broadcast quality, QC’d file as a matter of principle,” was the view of Mark Bos of Freemantle Media. “That is where the benefits in a standards workflow really bring advantages.” While the DPP is a UK


organisation, the advantages of promoting the standard worldwide are clear, and not least because greater use of AS11 will encourage more vendors to support it. “We are talking to other countries, who are taking the view that there is no need to reinvent the wheel,” according to Burrows, adding the obvious benefit that “it is based on AS03 so it is relatively easy for manufacturers to support it. We are talking to US studios who can see the advantage and are actively looking at it.”


Virtualising broadcast playout — a life without cables By Melanie Dayasena-Lowe


OPENING HIS Platinum presentation with the image of ‘no more tapes’ was Lewis Kirkaldie, head of Product Management, Cinegy. “It’s been a surprisingly long road to go from a tape-based world to a file-based world. It has been a lot of effort but we are starting to stand now on the precipice looking down at a metaphorical skip, getting ready to sling all of these things in there along with their cousins, the VHS tapes,” he said.


Explaining that it won’t be


much easier moving forward as things are always developing, he added “implementing a file-based delivery system removes barriers to distribution, flexibility and cost. When the barriers are removed, things that were previously unviable suddenly become viable and interesting, affordable or profitable.” Together with its strategic partner Deluxe, Cinegy has been working on how to solve these next-generation problems. Referencing the Gartner hype cycle, Kirkaldie explained: “We reached a point where everyone got really excited about files but it was really hard and everyone


TVBEurope 17


Lewis Kirkaldie: “At its heart, virtualisation


technology is about money. Private broadcasters want to make money; public broadcasters want to prove they’ve spent money well”


fell into the trough of disillusionment and felt that tapes were so much easier. We’re now climbing up the slope of enlightenment. “The cloud has been


ramping itself up the peak of inflated expectation. It’s an industry-recognised concept.


We’ve been working with Deluxe to try and make sure this trough of disillusionment is moved past as quickly as possible by delivering real services to real customers at realistic prices. The service to do this is Deluxe MediaCloud.” Continued on page 18


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