September 2013 www.tvbeurope.com


“Fibre optic underpins everything we do at MediaCity” — Paul Clenell, CTO


MediaCityUK Salford is a waterfront centre that has expanded in a few years from construction site on the outskirts of Manchester to a thriving digital media campus


TVBEurope 73 The Workflow


UK broadcasters and “the vast majority of the major indies in the UK” there is no disputing Senior’s claim that dock10 has come “a long way in a relatively short space of time.” The studio business


has a fast growing post production department, a range of connectivity and cloud services and, Senior reveals, “a number of other things we’re exploring.” www.dock10.co.uk


The connectivity across campus “is like having a big toy shop to play with, from a post perspective”


control rooms to any studio floor, “which gives us huge flexibility, continuity and also we can have one production team staying within those control galleries.” HQ1, the largest of the seven HD TV studios, is 12,500sqft and has hosted shows from Sports Personality of the Year to Dragon’s Den. At the event the space was expected to be fitted out with hoists, which are due to be up and running early this month, allowing things to be done overnight, rather than over a couple of days, and to fit more easily


around stars’ schedules. In a competitive media


market, in which “everybody’s got the same technology”, dock10 needs to offer something additional to its customers. Austin believes the key is “being able to deliver the most cost-efficient, flexible workflow solutions,” by “getting under the bonnet of that particular production and coming up with the best insight and the best workflow to deliver that for them.” Those providing this “one stop shop experience” at dock10 are “some of the best


Paul Austin, dock10


people in the industry”, says Andy Waters, head of Studios. The team includes 40 engineers and workflow architects, over 20 studio managers and core managers, as well as recently appointed Jamie Parry, dubbed “the top colourist in the north west” by Austin — and an exclusive agreement with respected dubbing mixer Mike Stewart. It was also announced at the event that Emma Riley joins dock10 this month as head of Business Development (see page 10). With £20 million revenues and clients including key


Cloud lifts lid on post production


IN ADDITIONto studios, production and connectivity services, dock10 is also introducing a number of cloud services. Paul Austin describes cloud-based work as “the key to the future of post.” Over the last year the company has done remote logging, viewing and proxy editing — services which are “key to any post facility.” The core cloud technology is CentralParq, a collaboration with Infostrada, to deliver production and distribution services to the media industry.


Commercial director Ian Munford explains that breaks in the workflow, panic, and the expense of digital led the company to develop cloud services. “What we’re doing is putting the infrastructure, the commercial model and the services in place to deliver a very different way of accessing things that people know and love today.”


Services include billing, content security, metadata management, ingest, “but the key thing,” comments


Munford, “is workflow management — one of our skills is being able to understand how to use technology appropriately.” During a demo of CentralParq, Jon Hatto, technologist, explains how the system allows users to get information shot by cameramen into dock10’s system and making that available to the team as quickly as possible. He concludes that the cloud solution “is going to lift the lid on what we can do in our post production industry.”


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