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Broadcast TECH


taking part in transmission tests in 2008 and 2010, and at London 2012. “I fi nd it more engaging than 3D,” he says. “I think Super Hi-Vision was more interesting to us, particu- larly for large screens. It is such an immersive experience.” NHK said it hopes to start domes-


tic trials of SHV by 2016, but the BBC has yet to commit to using the tech- nology. Linwood says he feels there is a future for web-based higher- defi nition-than-HD broadcasts, but with the caveat that the BBC will only examine it more closely when it becomes mainstream. One of the pillars of the BBC’s


move to a fi le-based workfl ow is DMI (Digital Media Initiative), a project that was set up with the aim of mak- ing it easier for staff to share content from their desktops. Last year, the National Audit Offi ce criticised the early management of the project for failing to deliver value for money, and Linwood admits it has been “a trou- bled project for many years”. He says one of his key achievements was bringing the project “back on track”. A few months after he took on the chief technology offi cer role, technol- ogy partner Siemens was ditched. The emphasis has now shifted from


providing production tools to archive. The phase after that will focus on get- ting content from production systems into the archive digitally. “We now have 2,500 live users across the BBC and pilots in Manchester and Bristol. Within a couple of months, the archive will be available to everybody in the BBC,” he says. For an organisation the size of the


BBC, tape remains an ever-present, with a huge amount of its archive on some sort of physical media. And although viewing material is largely delivered on Blu Ray or DVD, the broadcaster is still in the process of phasing out VHS. “We have built a digitisation factory so over time there will be less tape. But regardless of the money available, it would take 10 years to digitise the full archive and third parties still deliver content on tape,” says Linwood.


www.broadcastnow.co.uk/techfacils


Number of visitors to BBC Sport website over the 16-day event


55m


huge traffi c and the audience fi gures


‘We stayed on air, the website had


are stunning’ John Linwood


London 2012 Olympics: closing ceremony was broadcast in 3D


The BBC is one of the lead part-


ners in the Digital Production Part- nership (DPP), the cross-broadcaster group set up to drive common indus- try standards. The DPP has pin- pointed 2014 as the date for fi le- based delivery, but the BBC has adopted a more cautious stance. “We’re saying we would prefer con- tent delivered digitally by then, but we will accept tape beyond that dead- line. Over the coming year or two, we hope to get to the point where there is no more tape movement internally within the BBC, but that is going to take a while,” he says. But up to 90% of content that is


delivered to the BBC’s playout pro- vider Red Bee Media still arrives on tape and Linwood estimates it will be up to two years before fi les account for the majority of content delivered.


JOHN LINWOOD ON…


His fi rst computer “It was a Sinclair. I can’t remember which model – a ZX80 [pictured] or ZX81.”


His favourite gadget “It has to be my Apple iPad. I’m on my third. I spend most of my time reading or checking email or on Skype, and the iPad does everything for me. What I’d like to do is get rid of the iPhone and Blackberry and just have one device.”


Content shifting


“Even with 24 live streams for the Olympics, whenever anything


was on BBC1 or BBC3, that was where the bulk of the audience went, so I don’t think the case is made for raw feeds with every- one being their own director. We will provide a managed experi- ence on our primary outputs and we may provide additional services that have less direction online or via the red button.”


September/October 2012 | Broadcast TECH | 17


JOHN LINWOOD


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