Media Asset Management CLOUD TECHNOLOGY


Heading for the cloud


While use of the cloud for news production is still at an embryonic stage, its potential is huge. Will Strauss reports on the latest systems from Avid, Quantel and Aframe


ITN Newsroom: cloud-based newsgathering will be revolutionary T


he cloud is great, isn’t it? You house your digital content and the software that tracks or


manipulates it someplace else, have it managed by someone else, and pay for it on a subscription basis rather than spend loads upfront. Best of all, whether you use private


or public cloud, your ‘stuff ’ is acces- sible from anywhere in the world, assuming you have a web connection. In IT parlance, it’s called ‘Software as a Service’ (SaaS). What’s not to like? Well, right now, the cloud still


makes a lot of people within television very nervous. Because bandwidth, security, speed and price remain a concern, early adopters have tended to be organisations where files are small and there’s no real rush. News producers are not among that


group. With the popularity of mobile devices and the rise of the social net- works, the need to be first with news has never been greater.


6 | Broadcast | 6 July 2012


‘Having crews and reporters in the field, but working with their media assets as if they were back at base, would completely change the


way we work.’ Keith Cass, ITN


While there are notable exceptions,


like Sky Sports News using Chyron’s cloud-based Axis World Graphics system for on-air graphics manage- ment and playout, generally speaking, the cloud does not yet cut it. “News gathering and news produc-


tion requires connectivity to business applications that are not currently suitable for hosting in the cloud,” says ITN director of technology Keith Cass. “We use cloud computing for web


hosting and, later this year, we will deploy it for managing our email, user storage and Microsoft SharePoint and Office applications. Some mobile phone newsgathering solutions also use it. But newsgathering requires the transfer of large files that need to travel from the sharp end team to the produc- tion centre as quickly as possible, with as few intermediary steps as possible.” With that in mind, it is unlikely that


ITN’s clients – Channel 4, Channel 5 and ITV – will be using the cloud until


it can support editing and production tools. “Then the opportunity really presents itself to revolutionise news- gathering workflows,” says Cass. “Having crews and reporters in the


field, but working with their media assets as if they were back at base, would completely change the way we work.”


Enabling collaboration Crucial to this is the ability, when out in the field, to combine new footage with archive content or graphics that are housed or created back at the station. Yet aside from Forbidden Technolo-


gies, which introduced the revolution- ary FORscene back in 2004, few developers have been able to provide frame-accurate video editing in the cloud, let alone allow collaboration with the newsroom and its content. Avid is giving it a go. Currently in


beta is Interplay Sphere, a software application that will allow field journal- ists to use Newscutter or Media


www.broadcastnow.co.uk


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