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Broadcast TECH PLAYOUT LOSE THE ISLAND MENTALITY


Integrating workflow and playout is a challenge that must now be met, says Peter Elvidge


blood, sweat and tears, most broad- casters have managed to


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get efficient internal workflows in place. Although they’ve achieved varying degrees of functionality, for the most part, what’s been constructed at each organisation is an ‘island of efficiency’. Within the walls of a broad-


caster, patched-together processes work well, but efficiencies created internally rarely extend beyond the shores of this ‘island’. As soon as external partners, vendors and


‘The days of monolithic MAM systems should be gone’


organisations are included in the workflow, what we find is a virtual tape-based environment; the tapes may have gone, but the workflow trigger is still the piece of media, such as a file hitting a watch folder or a hard drive arriving. In such a scenario, the ability to


optimise capacity and prioritise content is lost. On top of that, urgent content is prioritised through phone calls, resulting in a “he who shouts loudest” approach. But perhaps the worst effect of this situation is that the business teams managing the content dis- tribution have little visibility, and even less control over what is actually happening. Left unchecked, the industry’s current ways of handling playout


www.broadcastnow.co.uk/techfacils


fter a lot of


and workflow management are a complexity time-bomb. We have so many technical formats and variations, so many differing compliance and language ver- sions, and so much supporting metadata and marketing materi- als, that what once was a tape now resembles a constantly evolving multi-dimensional content package, constrained by few standards and little shared good practice. The days of operational depart- ments building monolithic and bespoke Media Asset Manage- ment (MAM) systems, control- ling and constraining everything, and accessible only to a select few, should be gone. Instead, we need approaches that enable the whole organisation and beyond to seamlessly work with content right from commissioning or purchase through to distribution, in all the varieties we can imag- ine – and we need to manage all of the security concerns around this, rather than avoid them. Working with a single content-


management partner is a good way to avoid the headaches and investment involved with build- ing true end-to-end workflows. Our ambition is to work with the content workflows of our part- ners and customers, to integrate, share data, eliminate expensive human list crunching and cross- referencing, promote shared con- tent ecosystems, and drive the kind of end-to-end efficiency we all need to survive and grow. It is time to call an end to ‘islands of efficiency’ and to build bridges to connect broadcasters with everyone in the value chain. ➤ Peter Elvidge is deputy sales direc- tor, content distribution, at Globecast


POST-PRODUCTION FULL STREAM AHEAD


Richard Moss says that more than ever, media needs to be traceable and accessible at all times


content we handle now is file-based, and finding it can mean


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spending time digging around on a hard drive; or it might be stored in 10 different codecs or proxies. If it is archived to deep storage, it might not be viable to pull out footage each time a pro- duction needs to go back and select another shot. However, because so much


content is file-based, raw archive footage can be gathered, kept and made permanently available to production companies by stream- ing. Asset management and the use of archive content – for example, making every master programme available – is an important part of a post compa- ny’s offering. It is all about mak- ing the content viewable, acces- sible and searchable. Gorilla managed the entire


post-production of the first series of Sky 1’s Stella, including daily file management, Avid-based offline/online editing and grad- ing. For the second series, the production company might want to recap something from one of the first episodes, in which case it might be useful to have the GVs from series one. It’s this kind of access to raw rushes that is becoming increasingly useful to clients. There are systems out there that


allow retrieval from the cloud, from companies such as Avid and Tata, with its Mosaic platform, as well as FORscene from Forbidden Technologies. However, for now, different systems need to be glued


o much of the


together to make a single func- tioning system. When it came to making new versions of Indus Films’ The Lon- don Markets for the Open Univer- sity, the ability to go to FORscene to select rushes and retrieve them from a nearline or deep archive without tying up edit suites and post-production co-ordinators made it a cost-effective process. Any production company we work with can log into a cloud- based account. They type in their user name and password, click on the production they are interested in, and have near immediate or quick access to proxies of the master edit (H.264


‘It’s about making content viewable, accessible and searchable’


files), the finished programme and all the rushes. We have started the ball roll- ing and plan to grow the breadth of service we offer as it is set to become the norm in a couple of years’ time. There are some immense processes involved, and some are costly. As soon as the technology catches up with what we want to achieve, it should be plain sailing.


But by then, it could be too


late, so you need to grab hold of whatever interesting technology is available, dip your toe in the water and make yourself aware of the processes. ➤ Richard Moss is managing director of Gorilla post-production and facilities group


May/June 2012 | Broadcast TECH | 15


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