In association with


but stripped of its metadata, loses between 10% and 50% of its


value in a complex delivery, search-


heavy environment.” UK broadcasters have collaborated on the Digital Production Partner- ship (DPP), whose metadata scheme is largely intended for the processing, review and scheduling


of programmes. “The editorial data includes synop-


sis and titles but we’ve stopped short of scripts and cast lists,” says Kevin Burrows, Channel 4’s chief technology operator, broadcast and distribution, and chair of DPP Technical Standards. “We want to allow editorial meta-


data to be put in up front as much as possible, but if we make it too compli- cated, no one will use it. We are still in the fi rst stages of moving from tape and paper notes to working with fi les and metadata.”


London studios. “When we tested an American news show of mainly talking heads with the system, it was about 90% accurate, but with Antiques Roadshow, it went very awry trying to make sense of different accents, names and unique words. “Metadata that is automated is


unvalidated. If your business proc- esses rely on it, then even if you have one problem in a hundred, it could be costly. If you are having to pay Pepsi every time its logo appears and your automated software detection gets it wrong, it will be a very expen- sive mistake.” While agreeing that automated solutions will never be 100% accurate, Trainor says the focus should not be on the errors but on the useful pieces of information. “So what if a system gets two faces


in 10 wrong? It has generated eight that have historically been hard to create. There is a natural inertia to change but automated technologies are improving and can assist metadata capture today. The point is not to use them in isolation but to augment manual processes.” DMT is developing a set of software


tools based on facial and object recog- nition, brand recognition, time-code stamping and frame-accurate scene


www.broadcastnow.co.uk


extraction, which it will use in combi- nation with other forms of data. According to Richard Kastelein, a


partner at multiplatform strategist Agora Media Innovation, contextual metadata needs to become part of the creation process. “The production workfl ow of the


future needs to include some kind of tagging platform based on XML that allows creatives to identify, for example, the dress that is being worn, the car being driven, or the brand that is tied to the scene,” he says. “But the infrastructure and common standards are not there yet in the production workfl ow; nor in the broadcast playout systems. There needs to be a conver- gence of technology and creativity – a fusion of XML and script writing.” The bigger picture is that now


customers are searching for content among hundreds of possible sources and delivery options, the metadata to fi nd that content is far more important than it was in the days of simply changing the channel until you found something to watch. “The biggest pitfall is to view metadata as an afterthought,” says Avid director of solutions develop- ment Kevin Usher. “It is integral to the value of the fi nished product. Precisely the same media output,


‘Metadata that is automated is unvalidated. Even if you have one problem in a hundred, it could be


costly’ Lewis Kirkaldie, Cinegy


Common standard Part of the answer may come in a new standard the EBU is developing. The Framework for Interoperable Media Services (FIMS) is an attempt to write a common glossary of metadata terms and a set of common formats so that metadata is transportable between one system and another. A key part of the project is to develop automated tools for creating and manipulating metadata. “The challenge is how to generate


enough useful metadata that morphs and scales over time into something that describes the media fully and aids discovery,” says Trainor. While the issue of metadata capture


and collation is moving more into the consciousness of producers, it may be some time before automated technol- ogies make it cost-effective to do so. Which is why there is a call for a more commercially oriented approach to what Lesley Marr, senior operations director at ITFC, calls “knowledge- based workfl ows”. “No one wants to pay to log content


because they don’t see the value of it until further downstream,” says Marr. “There needs to be a more holistic view of a programme’s lifecycle and new business cases to make the most of metadata. If you are a vertically inte- grated company and you shoot content that you own the rights to sell, you have a valid interest in creating that meta- data up front. But where that’s not the case, there needs to be greater dialogue and education between production, sales and distribution.”


6 July 2012 | Broadcast | 5


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