May 2009 - TVBEurope

Transcription

TVBE_May P1-4, 16-18 news v3
8/5/09
10:46
Page 1
Inside: Media Asset Management, Red Workflow, Live 3D Special
TVBEUROPE
Europe’s television technology business magazine
MAY 2009 £5.00/€ 8.00/$10.00
www.tvbeurope.com
Media agent for change
The IT Workflow
Like its many national broadcasters,
Europe’s playout companies are
rushing to eradicate videotape from
ingest processes, and to create
super efficient, all-digital workflows
as a benefit. One such is Digital
Media Centre in Holland, as
George Jarrett finds out
Based in Amsterdam and owned
by Liberty Global Inc’s European
content division Chellomedia,
The Digital Media Centre (DMC)
chose Signiant’s CDM software
to be its main agent for change,
both internally and at client sites.
The executive responsible for this
strategy is VP of Technology
Jonathan Try, who manages
DMC jointly with VP of commercial operations Robin Kroes.
Try, who started out at the
BBC in 1977 and went on to hold
senior positions at TV-AM,
MTV Networks, and Pearson TV,
manages engineering, IT and
projects teams. His twin brief is
to create problem-solving initiatives for clients, and to manage
the quality requirements of inhouse operations and outsourced
vendor contracts.
Emphasising DMC’s speciality
in multilingual and multi-platform
broadcasting – it transmits over 50
channels across Europe, the UK,
Middle East, Asia and South
Africa – Try explained that DMC
consists of several distinct units.
The first is playout — with the
provision of subtitling services in
all languages, voice-over, multilanguage options, and channel
identity — via the Telstar 12
satellite, UPC Direct’s Astra
satellite transponders, or a wide
The NAB 2009 experience: Will consumers be happy with half HD quality
to each eye, when full high definition to both eyes is on the horizon?
Playout pressure: “We add commercials to most of the channels we
originate and although we do not sell the commercial airtime it is usually
our responsibility to merge the commercial schedules into the final
channels schedule,” says Vice President of Technology Jonathan Try
IT Broadcast Workflow
No doubt about it, the file-based
broadcast process is the hottest
industry topic for 2009. We’ve had
such interest in our IT Workflow
Special this issue that we have
made it a two-parter, with the
second installment running next
month. Such interest, indeed, that
we’re also now actively planning a
Broadcast IT Workflow event for
the industry at the back end of this
year. — Fergal Ringrose
Section starts page 8
range of fibre connections. On
the production side, DMC has a
three-camera studio designed for
live HD shows, plus edit, audio
and graphic suites. Its VoD service
handles the encoding and distribution of client content in multiple
languages. DMC also offers
channel management services,
fronted by launch, branding, promotion, content acquisition and
scheduling. Its clients include
National Geographic Television,
E! Entertainment and Playboy.
Before explaining the procurement process that found
Signiant and what the CDR software does, Try explains what lies
at the heart of DMC.
“The system used for the last
nine years is based on Seachange
servers and Harris D series
Automation,” he says. “In 2006
we decided to equip our HD
channels using Omnibus Colossus
automation and Omneon servers.
Currently we have 31 channels
playing from Omneon. Our
Omnibus iTX is used to playout
three channels, and we are just
adding another 13. The advantages of iTX are cost, footprint
(fewer boxes), and standardisation of hardware. And it is
easily scalable.”
DMC started the procurement process at the end of Q1
last year. It built its requirements
Continued on page 18
NAB takes 3D home
NAB Analysis
By George Jarrett
Much of the debate concerning the
consumer future of Digital
Stereoscopic 3D during NAB in
Las Vegas was instigated by the
release of the SMPTE task force
report ‘3D To The Home’, which
specifically concerns the standards
needed for, ‘A 3D Home Master
that would be distributed, after
post production, to the ingest
points of distribution channels.’
These would be everything
from mobile to satellite, but not
cinema. And this master should be
envisaged as an uncompressed and
unencrypted image format or file
package. As a precursor to a future
standard that cannot be expected
until late next year, this welldefined and helpful document was
ridiculed by Sky, which expects 3D
to be a consumer reality much
quicker than SMPTE can react.
Sky Chief engineer Chris
Johns, who is listed amongst the
task force contributors, said: “It’s
about here and now, not in three
years’ time. However, the big question is, what will be the catalyst to
make it happen?”
Sky of course has settled on its
STB as the scope of its first 3D
playground, so for a wider view of
the report and any subsequent
standard as catalysts, TVBEurope
turned to Warner Brothers’ VP of
Continued on page 4
NAB Wrap-Up
As NAB does not scan or count
delegates on-site, any
announcement of attendee numbers
at the show is completely
meaningless. What is important,
however, is the quality of the
business experience this year in our
tough economic climate. Read our
page 6 analysis of the ‘business of
NAB’ this issue, followed by full
technology analysis next issue by
Dick Hobbs, John Ive, George Jarrett
and Bob Pank — Fergal Ringrose
ONE Company. ONE Direction. The Future.
POWERING
ADVANC ED MEDIA WORKFLOWS
broadcast.harris.com
8/5/09
10:46
Page 3
TVBEU R O PE N E W S & A N A LY S I S
YouTube piracy control by Harmonic
By Dick Hobbs
Google, the owner of YouTube, is
moving to ensure that copyright
content is not available online
without the approval of its owners.
It already offers a service, called
Content ID, whereby it creates a
fingerprint of submitted content
and, if the content is subsequently
uploaded to YouTube, it is blocked.
The problem is that the original
content has to be uploaded to
Google for the fingerprint to be
created, and many producers regard
this as a security risk in itself. There
are also bandwidth considerations:
busy facilities working on multiple
simultaneous projects may need to
send a very large amount of content
to Google each day.
Harmonic has now offered a
solution, by embedding the Content
ID fingerprint creation algorithms
in its popular Rhozet Carbon
Coder transcoding systems. While
the material is passing through the
Carbon Coder the fingerprint file is
generated in parallel. On a typical
platform the fingerprint is created at
about 10 times realtime, and the
fingerprint file is just a fraction of
the size of the original content so
can be uploaded to Google easily,
along with metadata to determine
exactly how YouTube is to treat
unauthorised uploads.
The algorithm remains a
secret process owned by Google
and is implemented in a ‘sealed’
area of the Carbon Coder system.
Senior Harmonic managers claimed not to know how the fingerprints are created, but pointed
out that the system is proven to be
extremely reliable, even detecting
copies of content taken with a
handheld camcorder off screen.
www.harmonic.com
A new Ensemble for 3G signals
By Fergal Ringrose
Among 27 new NAB products,
Ensemble Designs has introduced the Avenue 7400 and
Avenue 9400 sync pulse and
test signal generators. For
broadcasters and mobile trucks
looking to future-proof their
installations, the 9400 3Gbps
sync pulse generator and test
signal generator offers every signal needed for a complete house
reference system.
3Gbps and 1.5Gbps HD SDI,
SD SDI, analogue composite,
HD Tri-Level Sync, timecode,
AES audio and analogue audio
reference outputs are generated.
New closed caption
test signals help
broadcasters
troubleshoot closed
caption data carriage through a signal chain. The builtin memory card
allows creation of
custom test patterns
and audio clips.
Smart Gain for Evertz
IntelliGain for loudness
By Fergal Ringrose
Audio loudness problems are nothing new. For years broadcasters
have had the challenge of providing
audio and video content to their
target audience while minimising
complaints about the drastic variations in audio loudness between
programme and commercial.
There are two main complaints: commercial loudness and
channel-to-channel loudness variation. As more and more channels with inconsistent audio levels
are distributed to the home,
public annoyance has increased.
Some recent studies have shown
up to a 17dB deviation in perceived loudness of programming
between channels. Home listeners
have had to tolerate this problem
by either muting the commercials
or adjusting the volume as they
watch their programmes.
Evertz has recognised this
dilemma by introducing IntelliGain.
This technology can be applied
to a number of Evertz products,
including frame synchronisers,
protection
switches,
audio
embedders and de-embedders.
Both manufacturers and broadcasters are expressing a real need
for new 3G TSG, said Mondae
Hott, director of Sales at Ensemble
Designs. “Equipment manufacturers need a solid 3Gbps test signal
and sync pulse generator for developing equipment in the lab.” All
Avenue frames are 3G capable.
For facilities using 3G the issue
of monitoring the signal becomes a
challenge. The BrightEye 72 is a
3G/HD/SD SDI digital to analogue
video converter with an HDMI
confidence monitor out that provides a convenient way to monitor
any type of digital video signal. A
3G video signal can be easily viewed
via the HDMI output.
Fergal Ringrose
provides some business
analysis of NAB 2009:
next issue, the definitive
technology analysis
8-31 IT Workflow
8 Tapeless Morning
GMTV has escaped the
shackles of Beta SP and
DigiBeta with the aid of
a new workflow built by
Avid. By George Jarrett
A move to locate all
Cologne-based
operations of RTL in one
facility provided a chance
for new investement.
By Philip Stevens
12 The Business Case
Serious media asset
management: Dick
Hobbs talks to Spanish
specialist Tedial about
the broadcast enterprise
16 The MAM chain
IntelliGain offers consistent
audio loudness levels within a
channel and/or programme;
automatic detection and level
adjust for loud commercials; gain
control within a programme
interval to preserve audio dynamic
range; artifact-free transitions
between programme and commercials and elimination of drastic
volume changes during commercials and interstitials.
IntelliGain processes long term
trends in the audio content and
uses a multi-minute time coefficient, which applies a smooth
attack producing the final target
loudness output. It processes
audio programmes of various or
mixed configurations, such as
mono, stereo, or multi-channel.
www.evertz.com
www.dvs.de
MuxXpert – Real-Time Multiplexing Redefined
• Exceptionally flexible and cost-effective software-based approach
• Re-multiplex live Transport Streams and local content from disk
• Automatic PSI and DVB-SI extraction, re-generation and insertion
• Runs on a standard PC with all DekTec input and output adapters
• Adaptation of PIDs, service IDs, tables, descriptors, etc.
1-6 NAB Analysis
10 CBC one roof
4k in realtime: At NAB DVS
unveiled Perseus, a new member
of the DVS video board family.
Perseus processes uncompressed
4k material in realtime and is
ideally suited for all applications
in the high-resolution arena.
This PCIe interface board plays
out uncompressed material in
realtime at resolutions up to
4096x3112. Since Perseus plays
out uncompressed images,
compression artifacts such as
blurred pictures, faded colours
and block artifacts can be
prevented. A sophisticated
SDK provides ideal opportunities
for developing systems that
meet the requirements of
high-quality content creation.
All common 4k displays and
projectors can be connected to
Perseus via four DVI or four
dual-link SDI interfaces. Its
integrated 3D LUT offers
realtime colour management.
www.ensembledesigns.com
CONTENTS
What’s the difference
between content
management and
workflow management?
Guest MAM analysis by
Mark Hill
21 Media City future
Networking the future
of media: MediaCityUK
is a new player joining
a set of industries
in flux. Adrian
Pennington reports
24 FoxBox playout
How Fox Channels
remotely increased its
media and equipment
assets in Athens.
By Don Ash, PlayBox
Technology
26 IT and Broadcast
David Fox analysis the
content of a recent
conference session
that suggested that
‘Broadcast is IT’
29 Red action
Managing the Red
workflow from
acquisition to post has
a tricky reputation.
Adrian Pennington
spoke to a Red expert
32-34 News & Analysis
32 3D string
Arts shows like the
recent Keane special
from Abbey Road could
lead the way forward for
3D production. George
Jarrett was there
34 HBB hybrid
What’s the future for
free-to-air broadcast
broadband services?
Guest Opinion by
Peter MacAvock,
EBU Technical
www.tvbeurope.com M AY 2 0 0 9
3
8/5/09
10:47
Page 4
TVBEU R O PE N E W S & A N A LYS I S
DPA hydrophone into compact flash
Sound of the whales
By Fergal Ringrose
BBC sound recordist Joe Stevens
has been using the DPA 8011
hydrophone, supplied by UK distributor Sound Network, to
record whale sounds in Alaska
and the Arctic for the recently
televised BBC One HD TV series,
Nature’s Great Events. Stevens
made two separate trips, the first
to Southeast Alaska to capture the
unique humpback whale bubble
People on the move
Roger Henderson has
The Digital Media
been appointed managCentre (DMC) has
ing director at Calrec
appointed Mike Severyn
Audio. Henderson has
as head of broadcast
many years experience
operations. He has
at senior management
previously worked at
level in broadcast comRed Bee, Ascent Media,
panies including ProTSI, Complete Video
Bel, Chyron and Ascent
and Molinare Visions.
Media. His appointRonald Williams is
ment follows the acqui- Roger Henderson,
the new vice president
sition of Calrec by Calrec Audio
of Sales, Broadcast
D&M Holdings in 2007
Products Division, at
and completes a succession Doremi. Williams’ years of experiprocess for Calrec’s original sen- ence in the industry includes spells
ior management. Calrec also with Philips, Sony and Panasonic.
announced the appointment of Williams also served as engineering
Henry Goodman as business and technical director for the
development manager. As a result ABC television network in New
of the new appointments, Stephen York, and was one of the team
Jagger and John Gluck will move leaders who designed facilities
into non-executive roles within for six Olympic games and eight
the company.
political conventions.
NAB takes
3D home
Continued from page 1
engineering Wendy Aylsworth,
who is also Senior VP of
Technology with SMPTE.
Aylsworth spoke first about a
firm date for a 3D consumer market, and about possible detrimental
impacts of the economic recession.
“I think it is reasonably sure we
could have the new generation
capabilities in the home within
three years,” she said. “I don’t think
the economy is affecting efforts to
create standards. Everything seems
to be a go for manufacturers who
are investing in this.
“The only direct impact I see on
the standards generally is travel to
meetings, which means more con4
ference calls. So I still anticipate 3D
standards could be published in
late 2010. That said, the economy
could impact on overall sales of
displays and players, and it could
impact on the production of new
3D content, both of which could
slow the uptake of this new digital
format,” she added.
The report suggests we are 60
seconds past the hour in the context
of where digital 3D stands. Chris
Johns thinks we are at version 0.5.
We are lumbered with 2D legacy equipment and 2D thinking, the
requirement to show 2D and 3D
versions alongside each other (with
all their different scenes and shots)
for several years, and then there are
issues like the need for broadcast to
carry two eyes.
What will the 3D Home Master
initiative trigger in terms of market
acceleration and follow-up standards? Coming from a film studio,
netting behaviour that occurs
there, featured in The Great Feast
episode. Bubble netting is a sound
the whales use to help surround
herring with a rising net of bubbles, before exploding up through
the centre with mouth agape to
swallow as much fish as possible.
The whales’ song is key to this
amazing behaviour, and Stevens
recorded the call using a single
DPA 8011 hydrophone recording
onto a solid state compact flash
recorder. The hydrophone was
deployed from the filming boat
and let down as deep as the cable
would allow, with boat engines
turned off.
Stevens subsequently used
the DPA 8011 on a trip to the
Canadian Arctic, where the team
spent a month on the sea ice finding and filming narwhals — elusive tusked whales — during their
annual journey through the inlets
as the ice breaks up. The team
worked on the edge of the ice,
again deploying the hydrophone
as deep as possible to minimise
the sounds of ice movement.
Accessorise your DSLR
By Fergal Ringrose
cine lenses. Thus the reverse
action provides that sharpness
moves away from the camera
when the hand wheel is turned
forward, and vice versa. When
shooting without an assistant
Chrosziel
recommends
the
Studio Rig Photo
combined
with
the VariLoc hand
wheel, which stores
two settable fixed
focus points for
exact repeatability
of focus pulling
without even looking. Chrosziel’s Light Weight
Support system for camcorders is
the base, allowing the adoption of
the optical axis of DSLR cameras
to the video standard. The basic
set with Light Weight Support
and Studio Rig Photo sells for
approximately €1,500 — and the
price with the MatteBox MB
450R2 is €2,500.
www.dpamicrophones.com
Whether it’s a camcorder or
DSLR camera recording moving
pictures, the requirements during
shooting are the same: precise
focus moves, mattebox flare
reduction, and fluid, smooth
controlled zooming. As a rule, all
sides of the camera
have to be accessible — a standard
feature
of
all
Chrosziel supports.
In DSLRs, the
focus and zoom
rings are positioned less conveniently than for film and video
lenses. Chrosziel has reacted,
modifying its Studio Rig Photo
follow focus with special reversing gear. Now the focus gear
optionally mounts in front or in
the back to fit all types of lenses.
The reverse gear is necessary
because photo lenses turn in
opposite directions than video or
IPV has appointed Piers
Godden as international sales
manager. Godden was instrumental in building the European
business for Toon Boom
Animation, the worldwide leader
in 2D animation enterprise solutions. Soho post production
facility LipSync has appointed
Robert Farr to join its sound
department as re-recording mixer. Farr’s most recent work has
been as a freelance re-recording
mixer on film projects including
Mike Leigh’s award-winning
Happy Go Lucky and the
forthcoming Terry Gilliam film
The Imaginarium of Doctor
Parnassus. Prior to this he spent
14 years at Goldcrest Studios.
Systems integrator Megahertz
(MHz) has appointed Ben Miles as
its Sales Manager for Europe.
Reporting to Robert Stopford,
MHz’s sales director, Miles will be
responsible for supporting growth
and drive expansion of high defini-
tion file-based workflow solutions hires, Alan Ren and Cian de
in the region. Miles previously Buitléir, as part of its expansion
held management positions at dB plans. de Buitléir has joined as
Broadcast, Pro-Bel and Leitch.
director of marketing. He was preWilliam (Billy) M Campbell viously with ammado, an Irish
III has been named to the posi- internet startup, and has also mantion of president and chief execu- aged marketing at Wohler
tive officer at Panavision. Technologies. Ross Video has hired
Campbell was most recently pres- Alan Bunting, as regional sales
ident of Discovery Networks, manager for Central Europe. Buntwhere he was responsible for all ing will be based in the UK and
aspects of the domestic television reports to Sharon Quigley, managdivision’s 14 channels. Dafydd er, International Sales — EAIME.
S e a C h a n g e
Upsdell, the former
International
has
content strategy manappointed Ed Dunbar
ager for Beam TV, has
as president and
joined Prime Focus
chief operating officer.
Technologies (PFT) as
Dunbar brings 30
director of sales for the
years of cable, adverUK. His role will be
tising and broadcast
focused on taking formanagement experiward the business
ence. Bill Styslinger,
development efforts for
founder
of
SeaPFT in the UK and
Change, continues as
European markets,
CEO and chairman of
Prompter People has Piers Godden,
the board.
announced two new IPV International
it must at least be the gateway to a
new market for Warner Bros?
“Yep, it is,” said Aylsworth.
“Something they don’t tell college students is that most engineering is retrofitting! Clearly, we can’t convince consumers to purchase special second
devices (display, STB, optical disk
players, etc) on which to watch only
3D content. So we have to ensure 2D
content can play well on new 3D displays and that 3D content will not
make an old 2D display look bad.
“There are many approaches for
both of these problems for a variety
of different transports. The challenge is to a) design formats that can
service both these issues over any
transport, and b) design the transport solutions to hopefully be very
similar across the various channels.
Some transports, like optical disk,
are easier to adopt than others like
live terrestrial broadcast. I believe
that once one transport method
makes it to market, the others will
rapidly follow suit,” she added.
Wrapped around the core
focus on the 3D Home Master
are a ton of helpful conceptual
data, the full glossary the market
has needed, and multiple application cases. What impact did
Aylsworth want from NAB?
“I just hoped more people
would start thinking about how
we provide consumers with a
great quality experience,” she
said. “And how to achieve that
through cohesive, interoperable
standards across the many standards bodies that are necessarily
involved. Quite a few organisations are liaising with SMPTE
and are committed to implementing standards in their areas of
expertise: ITU, DVB, ATSC,
CEA, SCTE, etc. I am very
encouraged by the level of
engagement and coordination.
www.chrosziel.de
“There are plenty of short cuts,
that would allow reasonable quality
to reach the consumer sooner, but
they may not stand the test of time
of being flexible and extensible. We
need to have the core standards to
be able to last many years without
forcing the consumer to frequently
buy new equipment,” Aylsworth
added. “The logical way to do it is
with packaged media.”
Asked about the talent pool
needed if digital 3D is going to
fly, Aylsworth picked up on the
point that experienced people will
need re-training.
“There is even a small quantity
of experienced people who have
been 3D fans for half a century
who can help train everyone in 3D
production techniques,” she said.
“Coupling those people with new
production people who have no
pre-determined ideas, should allow
for new, exciting collaboration.”
TVBE_May P6_News
8/5/09
10:49
Page 6
TVBEUROPE
Europe’s television technology business magazine
EDITORIAL
Editor Fergal Ringrose
tvbeurope@mediateam.ie
Media House, South County Business Park,
Leopardstown, Dublin 18, Ireland
+3531 294 7783 Fax: +3531 294 7799
Editorial Consultant George Jarrett
Associate Editor David Fox
United States Correspondent
Ken Kerschbaumer
Contributors Nicola Brittian, Mike Clark,
David Davies, Richard Dean, Chris Forrester,
Carolyn Giardina, Jonathan Higgins, Mark Hill,
Dick Hobbs, John Ive, Farah Jifri,
Ken Kerschbaumer, Heather McLean,
Bob Pank, Adrian Pennington, Nick Radlo,
Neal Romanek, Philip Stevens, Andy Stout,
Reinhard E Wagner
Digital Content Manager Tim Frost
Publisher Joe Hosken
ART & PRODUCTION
Group Production Editor Dawn Boultwood
Production Executive Phil Taylor
SALES
Group Sales Manager Steve Grice
steve.grice@ubm.com
+44 (0)20 7921 8307
UBM Ltd, Ludgate House,
245 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 9UR
Business Development Manager Alex Hall
alex.hall@ubm.com
+44 (0)20 7921 8305
US SALES
Michael Mitchell
Broadcast Media International, PO Box 44,
Greenlawn, New York, NY 11740
mjmitchell@broadcast-media.tv
+1 (631) 673 3199 Fax: +1 (631) 673 0072
JAPAN AND KOREA SALES
Sho Harihara
Sales & Project, Yukari Media Incorporated
sho@yukarimedia.com
+81 6 4790 2222 Fax: +81 6 4793 0800
CIRCULATION
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ISSN 1461-4197
6
NAB confirmed the industry is no longer technology-led; it is technology-enabled
What happened at NAB 2009?
NAB Show Analysis
By Fergal Ringrose
So what was NAB like for the
vendor community? “Yesterday
paid for the show!” declared
Pharos’ Director of Marketing
Russell Grute on the second day
of the exhibition. “It’s been brilliant, to be honest,” said Jeremy
Deaner, CEO of AmberFin. “The
quality of people we’ve been
seeing is very high — and they’re
people with money.”
“Strangely enough, business
is good,” said T-VIPS CEO
Johnny Dolvik. “The level of
Europeans here is as high as normal. I can’t see any difference.
Suits are back!” he observed, in
reference to the changed business
climate at NAB.
“We didn’t know what to
expect, and we’ve been pleasantly surprised,” said Mike NAB Central: The show organisers claimed 82,842 attendance (23,232 international) but these
Hodson, President of OmniTek. figures are meaningless, as delegate attendee badges are not scanned on entry to the show floor
“NAB has been business as
attending for less time, trips to NAB are no longer social or
usual, and has exceeded our expectations.”
“It’s a very good show for us,” said Bob Easton, president of relaxed — it’s strictly business.
The third trend, following the first two, is that visitors are trav360 Systems. “We didn’t know if there would be tumbleweed
elling to shows to ask vendors how they can save them money in
rolling down the aisles!”
“It’s much better than I feared it was going to be, but not as the future. I could confidently say that at every single booth visit
good as previous years,” was the cautious opinion of Telestream’s I made (around 100), the vendor said visitors want them to
explain how operational expenditure can be reduced — not just
George Boath.
“We’re very excited. We’ve had some great meetings – and what new products or feature sets are being displayed. As content
we’ve closed three deals at the show,” said Front Porch producers/owners/distributors, how can we use the new digital
technologies to reduce operating cost and how can we combine
International Managing Director Rino Petricola.
them to achieve more efficient, less costly workflows?
Another trend leading from this one — and it’s not hard and
“Strangely enough, business is good.
fast, just a general trend detected at the show — is that business
The level of Europeans here is as high as
flows are now becoming integrated with workflows (through the
different phases/links of the chain) and fileflows (the ‘plumbing’
normal. I can’t see any difference. Suits are
of file movement and exchange) in the broadcast technology
back!” — Johnny Dolvik, CEO, T-VIPS
space. The enterprise goals used to be separate from the physical
creation, management and delivery of content; but now every“I’ve had the best NAB ever!” said OmniBus CEO Mike Oldham. thing must be lined up in order for content owners to make infraFor a number of vendors we talked to, it was the best NAB structure purchase decisions.
This obviously doesn’t apply if you’re a shooter buying a triever. And it was the year NAB became like IBC.
Those two statements are interrelated. Given the economic pod or a sports venue buying a switcher; but for the electronic
backdrop, NAB was forced to abandon the numbers game and so content enterprise, the business and technology objectives are
it became more like a business-to-business show and less like a merging. This is because our industry is no longer technology-led;
tyre-kickers SuperMeet circus. NAB claimed 82,842 attendance it is technology-enabled. Vendors must be able to demonstrate
(23,232 international) but these figures are totally meaningless business management proficiency and RoI to users these days.
The fifth big thing to happen was the loss of DV/UGC and
anyway, as attendee badges are not scanned on entry to the show.
Hollywood communities at NAB. The DV shooter crowd vanWhy bother releasing such numbers?
Meaningless also, in that in 2009 NAB morphed into a high- ished into thin air, along with Apple. Will Apple ever come back
level business event where the quality of the visitor experience to NAB? We can probably guess the answer…
In relation to the Hollywood community we can probably ask
became paramount. In that sense it became more like IBC. More
the same question about Red coming back to NAB. But the bigbusiness, less razzmatazz.
We have to credit Sony’s Norman Rouse for coming up with ger picture is that the digital film workflow is now established.
the soundbite of the show in describing NAB as ‘a Business Class’ NAB held onto that debate so long as it was about taking a conshow this year; more seats, less people, greater comfort, a more troversial electronic approach to high-end filmmaking. These discussions are bedded down now and the digital film workflow is
refined and civilised experience.
established; electronic cinematography now sits alongside 35mm
Strictly business
as a medium of choice for big budget movie production.
The economic downturn caused other things to happen at
As a rule, the Hollywood production community doesn’t need
NAB that I believe are permanent and irreversible — even if NAB (or IBC) unless there is an unresolved electronic film
the economy picks up again strongly in the near future. The production debate raging in the industry. And besides, 3D is a
first trend is for exhibitors to seek smaller exhibition stands, done-deal in Hollywood, so that’s no longer a reason for the
with less kit on display and more tables and chairs available for movie people to come to NAB. 3D has been bought by
business meetings.
Hollywood; and the debate now moves onto/into the home.
The second is that visitors are travelling in smaller numbers
Of course none of this is what NAB wants to hear! I imagine
and are staying for less time. The days of squads of broadcast the show organisers just want a return to the gigantic electronic
engineers fanning out across the halls looking for funky new media supermarket of the past. But the experience of NAB 2009
products are simply gone. Over. Visitor groups being smaller and told us that those days are gone. Period.
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TVBEU R O PE I T W O R K F L O W S P E C I A L
Good morning tapeless TV
The British breakfast TV station GMTV, which transmite daily from 06:00-09:25, has escaped the enduring shackles of Beta
SP and Digital Betacam with the aid of a new digital workflow structure built and installed by Avid. George Jarrett reports
Tapeless Interplay
To achieve the desired ‘endto-end’ workflow across its
newsroom operation and various
production teams, ITV1 morning
broadcaster GMTV has acquired
four Avid Unity ISIS media network solutions with 64TB storage, plus an iNEWS newsroom
management system, an Interplay
workflow engine with Interplay
Access asset management clients
and Interplay Assist clients on all
corporate user PCs.
At the front end of all of this
are 40 editing and ingest stations,
and GMTV’s new archive store is
built around a Sony Petasite with
SGL Flashnet software. Head of
Technology Peter Russell started
off by explaining what GMTV
had jettisoned in the way of
‘legacy’ technology.
“In 2001 we installed a Quantel
solution with two edit seats, one
Henry V8 and one edit box connected to a Clipbox Power via
SDI, with a Clipbox Studio for TX
back up,” he explains. “The
automation side of that installation was handled by IBIS using the
Russell admits that the procurement process was not long or
exhaustive because GMTV was
able to scrutinise the path that
ITV had chosen with its Avid
structure. “Our build technically
is quite different to the ITV
regions, but is very similar —
although smaller — to the ITN
installation,” he says. “Both
ITN and ourselves purchased the
Avid Workgroup 5 solution. This
Interplay-driven system was quite
new, but Avid is transparent in its
development. While we did have
some initial ‘features’ they were
quickly remedied.
“ITV was a positive that we
had to take seriously. The level of
experience and expertise that it
had to offer us, along with key
advice, made the process easier,”
he adds.
Despite the ITV input,
GMTV eventually decided for
itself that the Avid option was the
only one that would truly integrate its entire workflow. The system design came to being through
a collaboration between GMTV
and the Avid PSG team, which
also provided training and on-site
support during installation.
“We have increased the quality and quantity of our output, improved
internal and external communications, and gained true control of our
assets and data,” says Peter Russell
“We are as close to tape-free as we can be; the
output from cameras will never see a tape again,
other than the SAIT2 data tape on which it will
eventually reside” — Peter Russell
Serverload, Serverplay, Server
Monitor and Cliptrim packages.
We also had several Flash
Technology ingest and playout
devices running Interlinear and
Intercart software. This nonlinear
solution replaced the Sony 600
tape suites with Beta SP, that had
been installed for GMTV’s start
up,” Russell adds.
“We have not kept any of the
technology relating to these areas.
Every part of the old workflow has
been replaced by the Avid system.”
“Avid’s key ability is to allow
seamless workflow at each stage of
the production process,” says
Russell. “We have increased the
quality and quantity of our output, improved internal and external communications, and gained
true control of our assets and data.
“Another of the huge benefits
is resilience. Historically at GMTV
even the most minor of failures
has resulted in a complete shutdown for repair,” he adds. “Avid
hardware failures can be checked
way before the point of failure
and, thanks to the Unity ISIS
blade system, an unplanned failure at worst disrupts an isolated
area of the server while the rest of
the system can carry on working.”
Steady migration
Russell moved onto the advantages of automated ingest, browse
qualities, the truth about being
tape-free, and the green issues
associated with buying new technology. “MPEG-2 (browse) is
NOVA TV catches the MXF
train with MOG Technologies
By Fergal Ringrose
Privately-owned Nova TV in
Croatia is now experiencing
benefits of the technical features
provided
by
the
newest
mxfSPEEDRAIL F1000 ingest
system,
built
by
MOG.
mxfSPEEDRAIL F1000 is a filebased ingest solution that moves
8
MXF media (like video, audio
and metadata) from any location
into Avid Unity ISIS, Avid
MediaNetwork or any other
media shared storage.
Fully supporting devices such
as Sony XDCAM and Sony
XDCAM HD, mxfSPEEDRAIL
has several modes of operation
available and it includes a SOAP
interface for easy integration with
other systems and an intuitive
web-based GUI for remote monitoring and configuration.
The bet on MOG’s product
has provided Nova TV with a
simpler and easier way to ingest
material from various devices and
generated along with IMX30 (broadcast) video on ingest,” he explains.
“Our Archive solution, from
the day we went live with Avid,
will not be an issue. The problem
we will face is purely our legacy
archive on DVCPRO and Beta SP.
To ingest this to the Petasite
domain is unfeasible due to its
size. It will be a steady migration,
as and when the historic material
is needed,” he says.
“Metadata will allow us to
keep tabs on archive material and
locations in multiple formats,
allowing a more efficient usage of
time and resources and speeding
up the tapeless workflow.
“This
is
the
first
mxfSPEEDRAIL system totally
implemented in a TV station in
Europe with such a major importance as Nova TV,” said Vitor
Teixeira, MOG sales manager.
“mxfSPEEDRAIL provides a
cost-effective solution for generating multi-formats and multiresolution editing. It is the result
of a major engineering development by MOG.”
Requirements such as the
ingest of SD MXF files faster
its importance. This is a truly
expandable asset that will
become more and more important and valuable as its content
grows,” he continues. “We are as
close to tape-free as we can be;
the output from cameras will
never see a tape again, other than
the SAIT2 data tape on which it
will eventually reside.
“Environmental concern was a
factor for consideration, but modern technology performs better
than older systems and the level
of individual redundancy is far
improved,” he says. “This results in
a reduced requirement for dual
failover systems. And remember,
the disposal of old kit also requires
environmental contemplation.”
Russell explained that the
‘dynamic nature’ of GMTV’s output had driven the search for a
new workflow technology. Inputs
from staff dictated that any new
system had to be stable across all
content types, and provide file
sharing capabilities, plus expandable archiving. Above all, the new
system had to automate time
wasting processes (like ingest) to
boost creativity.
“We cover so many areas –
children’s programming on at least
two platforms seven days a week,
news, fashion, features, Web,
weather, showbiz, current affairs
etc,” he says. “The install has been
very smooth and the go live has
followed suit. We expected no
issues, and we have had no issues.”
In fact, the Children’s TV
department and the promotions
unit have used the Avid Interplaybased system for 20 months. Avid
iNews was installed more recently, and GMTV’s main programme
went live on the new system on
March 15. Not once did Russell
mention any transition stage to
HDTV from SD. Why not?
“GMTV currently has no plan
to adopt HD, but we are of course
looking for compatibility in any
new kit we purchase,” he says.
then realtime; checking in on
both WG4 and Interplay; support for multiple devices
attached to the same machine;
selection of the workspace
ingest; automatic renaming of
multiple clips and an increased
integration with Interplay assist
to allow head-frame display and
a locators support, were major
factors in Nova TV’s decision to
adopt MOG ingest solution.
“With this new technology once
again Nova TV is a pioneer and
trendsetter on the market,”
explained Nova TV’s technical
director Miljenko Logozar.
www.mog-solutions.com
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10:52
Page 10
CBC all under one roof
A move to locate all Cologne-based
operations of the RTL media group
in one facility provided a chance to
make some investments. Philip
Stevens looks at what was involved
in the creation of the new CBC
Cologne Broadcasting Center
Over the next few months, all
Cologne-based companies of the
Media Group RTL Germany will
move from offices and studios
throughout the city to be located
under one roof in a new purposebuilt facility. This new combined
operation will be known as CBC
Cologne Broadcasting Center —
a name that has already been a
major part of the television landscape in the city for 15 years.
According to Mido Fayad,
CBC’s director of Broadcast
Operations, the relocation will
enable all the companies to benefit from closer working practices
and the introduction of state of
the art technology.
“Numerous high profile TV stations and producers already rely on
our array of individualised services
comprising playout, teleport, production, post production, systems
integration and implementation and
media services. The move will mean
enhanced, more efficient and effective workflows of their businesses.”
CBC’s clients include TV channels and other clients such as RTL,
VOX, Super RTL, RTL II, n-tv,
RTL Crime, RTL Living, Passion,
tv.gusto, tv.gusto Premium, IP and
more. At the new centre, up to 15
channels will be played out using an
Abit Present automation system,
Omneon Spectrum server, Evertz
routing and master control switcher,
Miranda Intuition graphics generator and Barco Multiviewer monitoring. Three additional channels are
played out from CBC’s Munich centre. Furthermore, CBC is producing
and broadcasting the international
programme of the German football
league on behalf of Sportcast.
The new facility will operate
two main studios main of 410m2
and 230m2, and several smaller
production areas for weather,
breaking news and internet programmes. In addition, there will be
CBC will employ Orad’s ProSet, which provides
12 video insertions in SD or up to six in HD
10
two news sets with associated control rooms for the n-tv output.
“The two main studios will be
fully integrated with CBC technology
that includes a central control room,
together with visual and sound production,” explains Andreas Fleuter,
director Production at CBC. “This
infrastructure enables uncomplicated direct live broadcasts.”
He continues, “All the facilities
within the new centre will be high
definition capable — but it is the
decision of our clients whether or
not that format will be used on
individual productions.”
To handle multi-camera productions, CBC has opted for Grass
Valley LDK-6000 cameras. “They
offer the best features for our needs
– combined with value for money,”
declares Fleuter. He cites the
same reason for selecting the new
Kayenne XL 450 high-end production switcher.
Sound investment
For its audio requirements, CBC
has selected Lawo mc290, together
with Nova 73HD and Stagetec
Nexus digital routers. Both studio
control rooms are linked to the
Nova router – and this will handle
all signals fed through the Lawo
Dallis I/O systems. This networking
system permits both mixing consoles to share sources from either
studio. Control is handled by means
of an access rights facility.
The mc290 consoles are
equipped with 24-8-24 faders, while
a control PC provides console
surface redundancy. The HD core
operates 512 DSP channels and 144
The new CBC features Omneon storage, Abit automation, Evertz
routing and master control, Miranda Intuition and Barco monitoring
summing buses, as well as a routing
capability of 8192 crosspoints. “The
mc290 consoles, with their shared
use of studio signals, are very well
suited to our requirements and
workflows,” explains Fleuter.
MADI client cards are used to
integrate the Lawo audio router
into the comms system supplied
by Riedel Communications. In all,
a total of five Riedel Artist mainframes and more than 100 control
panels have been installed.
“Two Artist 128 mainframes are
used in two control rooms of the
main studio,” states Thomas Riedel,
managing director of Riedel Communications. “Additional Artist 128
frames are installed in the master
control room and in the studio of
n-tv. An extra Artist 64 is set up in the
broadcasting operation room.”
The intercom system is set up in a
redundant ring configuration, so that
in the event of a connection failure
between two devices, the operation of
the rest of the system is guaranteed.
Further, the full summing architecture allows non-blocking matrix sizes
of up to 1,024 x 1,024 ports.
The Riedel installation includes
its Director software. “This allows
an easy configuration of the whole
intercom matrix via drag-and-drop
programming,” maintains Riedel.
“It is possible not only to configure
the routing of control panels, but
also program logic operations. For
example, an operator can trigger
several relay operations together
with special intercom routings with
just one single button.”
Designer graphics
Graphics generation at the new
facility has been entrusted to Orad
Hi-Tec Systems. Realtime 2D/3D
graphics and animation will come
from Orad’s 3Designer authoring
software, Maestro graphics system,
multiple HDVG video rendering
platforms, and 3DPlay channel
branding and controller systems.
3Designer is a template-based
system composed from an unlimited
number of layers. A dedicated camera is assigned to each layer to enable
maximum control over all elements
within the scene. In this way, each
layer or scene can also be mapped as
a texture on the surface of another
object. Orad says that this enables
the generation of animations and
effects that are normally only possible in post production.
In addition, CBC will be using
Orad’s ProSet package for its virtual studios. This provides 12 video
insertions in SD mode or up to six
when configured in HD. These
insertions can originate as Avi,
MPEG, DV, DVC25, Quick Time
and other common formats. It is
possible to mix between video
streams and video clips, as well as
mix HD and SD inputs, as all HD
formats are supported.
Of course, plans for this new
facility were in place before the
current economic downturn. And
a development on this scale is costly.
So does CBC view the next one to
two years in terms of business
growth? Mido Fayad is very
upbeat. “CBC was – and is — providing best premium products and
services and custom-tailored solutions combined with high-level
efficiency. Those qualities are
always in demand.”
TVBE May P8-31 IT
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A rigorous approach to asset management
The Business Case
“Last year at NAB, walking around
the show floor, I saw signs on
stands offering ‘media asset
management — $2000’. I asked
them what you got for $2000:
they said it was a database of clips.
That is not asset management.”
This bold statement comes from
Emilio López Zapata, CTO of
Spanish company Tedial:
Technologias Digitales Audiovisuales
writes Dick Hobbs
Emilio López Zapata has an
unusual background to be running a media company, and one
which makes his opinions on
asset and process management
worth considering. He was —
and still is — professor of computer architectures at the
University of Málaga. As part of
that he runs Europe’s leading
academic high speed computing
centre. He also represents Spain
on EU committees on computing and communications, and
leads research in relevant fields
including the image transforms
at the heart of digital coding.
“One of my surprises, talking
to companies working in IT for
broadcast, was that they were a
long way from IT in other industries,” he says. He was perplexed
that the applications being developed were neither as rich nor as
integrated as he would expect,
particularly as the building
blocks – media asset management, enterprise management
12
Emilio López Zapata: “In classical
enterprise management you move the
metadata. In broadcast applications
you also have to move media”
and business process management – are well established.
“Many people use asset management in their own way,” he
says. “Enterprise management is
an old concept, and working
collaboratively is only logical. But
in broadcast, many people think
that media asset management is
the solution,” continues López.
“People say ‘I have MAM’, but if
you do not have enterprise management and business process
management what do you have —
you have a database.”
With colleagues, he established
Tedial in 2001, bringing together
university researchers with media
specialists to build a new asset
management solution. The Tedial
advantage is that it came with no
legacy at all: it was a genuinely
clean sheet of paper. This, he
believes, allowed them to take a
new approach, separating the
management tasks from the detail
of the operation, and thereby
creating real flexibility.
He starts out by pointing to
the fundamental difference in
enterprise management systems
in other industries and in broadcast. “In the classical enterprise
management you move the
metadata,” he explains. “In
broadcast applications you also
have to move media.” As we are
all well aware, the challenge of
moving media, in a file-based
system, is that there is a vast
number of different formats.
That is where the background in
theoretical image transforms
becomes useful: the Tedial architecture includes the ability to
convert between anything and
anything, transcoding and transwrapping very quickly.
All the algorithms are developed in-house, often using the
university’s 512 blade IBM supercomputer to establish the mathematics before converting the
process for a more standard
Windows box.
More important, this format
transformation and management layer is kept distinctly separate from the process layer.
Designing a workflow does not
need to be concerned with the
mechanics of what formats are
used on which devices.
“We have one customer who
wanted to change from MediaStream to Omneon for its playout
server,” López explains. “All we
needed to do was double-click on
the playout server box on screen,
select the new driver, and the
whole system worked.”
A layered approach
He also describes an installation the
company delivered in 2002, for the
European operation of one of the
best known international broadcasters. “They started with three
channels, and now transmit seven
with the same number of people.
“Their initial decision was on
MXF 50 for the house standard,
Dealing with these manually
would be prone to error, so there
has to be a layered approach,
with transcoding, media integration brokers and system health
monitors operating on hidden
levels and workflows defined at
a very high level: the business
process management.
It also means that interaction
with external systems can be implemented transparently, and even
add new functionality. The Tedial
infrastructure can include an asrun compliance recording of the
channel output for legal purposes.
“But if we combine that compliance recording with overnight
ratings information, managers
and advertising sales people can
very quickly see what worked and
“People say ‘I have MAM’, but if you do not
have enterprise management and business
process management what do you have —
you have a database”
with OMF on Avid Unity for editing and Seachange MPEG-2 SAF
playout servers — that is three different wrappers. They also have a
news operation at 25Mbps that
needs transcoding as well as wrapping. In a system like that, it is
very important to transcode as
little as possible.”
López points out that, when
you work out the permutations of
compression and wrapping, you
end up with a lot of variables:
there are more than 180 flavours
in the Tedial library at present.
what did not,” López explains.
“Traffic systems can use planning
information not just to create
workflows – orders for promos,
for instance – but to calculate
exactly how much a day’s broadcasting will cost.”
Tedial software runs on standard platforms from Dell, IBM
and HP. It is designed to be completely scalable and to integrate
seamlessly, whether it is with a
data archive sub-system or a
broadcast application like playout
automation from someone like
Pebble Beach.
When Tedial was founded the
intention was to be a broadcast
process specialist, but the company
has found applications for the
same technology in other fields,
from managing lift queues at ski
resorts to tracking the processes
of more than a thousand courts in
Colombia; from industry to
healthcare — wherever there is a
need to link media and metadata.
The same design philosophy is
equally applicable: you simple
change the standards library
from the MPEG family to, say,
DICOM in the health industry.
And as Tedial is now 50%
broadcast, 50% other industries,
so founder Emilio López Zapata
is still 50% Tedial, 50% university
professor. His company is
housed in its own building, close
to the university campus on a
science park just outside
Málaga, delivering consultancy,
integration and software to its
customers worldwide.
“RTC, the legal compliance
authority in Mexico, is monitoring and storing 7,856 hours of
content a day through a Tedial
installation,” he concludes “That
is a big problem for any media
asset management system — it is
what we mean by scalability!”
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NEWS
IN BRIEF
Sencore standard
Sencore officially introduced
the IRD 3000, a high-density,
SD receiver decoder at NAB.
The IRD 3000 is the latest
extension of Sencore’s line of
receiver decoders that includes
the award-winning Atlas
Modular Receiver Decoder and
the AtlasGear card-based
receiver decoder family for the
openGear chassis. Sencore
provides receiver decoder
solutions as well as operational
equipment and test &
measurement instruments to
broadcasters, telcos, cable, and
satellite providers. The IRD
3000 multi-channel receiver
decoder supports four channels
of 4:2:0 or 4:2:2 profile MPEG-2
services. Each of the four
MPEG-2 decoders receives
multiple service transport layer
input and decodes one video
and two audio.
www.sencore.com
NTT AVC for MLB
NTT’s HV9100 Series
AVC/H.264 HDTV/SDTV
encoders/decoders have been
selected as the codec equipment
to be used for HD sports
coverage on the MLB Network,
the sports channel operated by
Major League Baseball in the
United States. The MLB Network
was launched by MLB on
January 1 2009 as a satellite and
cable channel dedicated to 24
hours-7 days a week detailed
coverage of Major League
Baseball. To provide this
broadcast service and to satisfy
the most ardent baseball fans,
the MLB Network is producing all
broadcasts in full HD video. NTT
Electronics encoders/decoders
have been installed in the 30
MLB Ballparks to ensure all
broadcasts feed to the newly
constructed studio centre in
Secaucus, New Jersey. At the
launch of the MLB Network, the
network was made available to
50 million homes, the highest
viewing figures for a network
debut in satellite and cable history.
www.nel-world.com
Multimedia for the European Parliament
Europarl TV has been online with four web TV channels since
September 2008. The challenge of building a suitable technology
infrastructure for 22 languages fell to Video Promotion
By David Stewart
In order to better communicate
and get closer to the citizen, the
European Parliament has created
Europarl TV, a web-TV operation
that is already accessible on the
internet for public testing. The
Brussels-based company Video
Promotion was chosen to take on a
true challenge: producing 300
hours of content annually in 22 languages! Video Promotion did not
hesitate to hire several dozen collaborators, all making use of the
ideal tool — a newsroom — and the
technical equipment that accompanied this ambitious choice. The
challenge of timing involved first
discussions in April, commencement of installation in June, first
tests in July and bringing a trial program on antenna in September. To
discuss this further, we met Project
Manager Eric Morren and Michel
Loiseau from Video Promotion.
What does Europarl TV consist of?
Eric Morren (EM): “The European
Parliament launched two requests
for tenders: Video Promotion won
the contract for the production and
Twofour, an English operator, is in
charge of broadcasting, streaming
and hosting the site. Europarl TV
has been online with four channels
since 17 September 2008: a general
information programme on the
political and daily activity of the
European Parliament, a channel
more oriented towards the youth
with the development of a virtual
character at the planning stage
(Neuro TV), an interactive channel
where the word is given to the citizens in the form of microphone
sidewalks, and a tool in full development and to be brought online in
the first half of 2009 that will allow
visitors of the site to question
members of parliament through a
video file of the cellular phone,
camera or webcam.”
What has been the main difficulty
in technical fulfilment?
Audio challenge: How do you supply an ongoing service in 22 languages?
EM: “Producing 300 hours of content annually in 22 languages! We
had to find solutions to be able to
generate this production in addition
to our other activities. The idea has
been to create a standard platform
that allows us to realise various and
really varied projects by positioning
ourselves in a multimedia, multistandard and multi-output perspective. An analysis of the market
caused us to opt for the principle of
the ‘newsroom’. In the beginning
our choice referred to web TV but
we proceeded directly to a higher
dimension by adopting this technology together with our productions.”
What kind of investments has
this involved?
EM: “We have chosen the tapeless
option without a priori brands.
After studying the market, we opted for Panasonic P2 cameras and
the Avid platform. We have seven
fixed stations and seven mobile stations (laptops equipped with software). The journalist goes out in the
field with his P2 camera, his laptop
and his card reader. He or she
shoots, derushes, edits and feeds the
server with the finished product,
either remotely or by returning to
Video Promotion. As for storage,
we have bought the Sun platform,
structured around an SGT Media
Manager, which is an indexing
tool for all files. Transcoding is
through Telestream FlipFactory,
and archiving is achieved onto three
OpenCube servers.”
What has been your main challenge?
Michel Loiseau (ML): “Ensuring
that we deliver a considerable quantity of reports every day. The journalists must have quick access to all
that exists in the database. We had
to make the project secure because
the amount of time that we were
given was very short. We selected
partners who agreed to provide us
with an in-house project manager
who is able to respect the deadline.
We chose not to take products in
development that could jeopardise
the deadline.
From April through September
our premises had to be physically
transformed, personnel had to be
gathered and the tools had to be
changed! Our new challenge is to
find the means to classify the flow
of files automatically and permanently. The strict methods of office
automation are being introduced to
the audiovisual world. At the same
time, we hear about standardisation
while we notice a multiplication of
formats. Today, the output signal is
foreseen for the web but perhaps
tomorrow we have to propose small
two or three minute programmes
for portable phones or for closedcircuit televisions.”
What kind of relationship do you
have with the broadcaster?
EM: “Twofour is an English company based in Plymouth. They have
supplied us the specifications concerning the different file formats
they need. They put a programming
tool at our disposal that is managed
by both the Parliament and Video
Promotion. We supply them with
files through simple robot-aided
transfers. Officially, we do not have
any control over the broadcast but
we have an editing responsibility
with the European Parliament.”
How has the project evolved in-house?
EM: “This is a unique project
mainly because the production
takes place in 22 languages and is
entirely broadcast on the web without any broadcasting by microwave
link or by cable. This also involves
an exceptional experience: implementing a technical infrastructure
in less than six months to radically
change a company practically from
one day to the other towards a platform with new functioning modes
and new challenges!”
www.videopromotion.be
www.europarltv.europa.eu/
StartPage.aspx
Jünger Audio’s multichannel digital
audio dynamics processors have
been adopted as standard by Parisbased audio post production facility
Creative Sound, which has now
installed them in all of its studios.
Creative Sound was established in
2000 by sound mixer Cristinel Sirli
and specialises in providing recording
and post production services to a
range of film, television and DVD
clients. The facility has seven
studios including a Dolby Digital
dubbing theatre, which is primarily
used for surround sound and 5.1
cinema projects. According to
Cristinel Sirli, “In France, both stereo
and 5.1 audio for television must
meet a level of 8db Full Scale. The
Jünger Audio equipment looks after
dynamics and loudness processing,
making it much easier for us to meet
these requirements. During mixing
we can simply forget about the
stress of achieving specified levels
and instead get on with the job of
being creative and artistic because
the Jünger Audio equipment ensures
that we don’t exceed 8db.”
www.junger-audio.com
14
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What’s the difference between content management and workflow management?
MAM through the value chain
Guest Analysis
By Mark Hill
Core to the definition of Media
Asset Management (MAM)
remains the concept of being able
to identify what content is held;
where that content is; and
whether the content can be ‘used’
in some way. While most MAM
products continue to tread lightly
in the area of rights management
— in practice being subtly redefined in terms of content, or
media management — they are all
today so much more than mere
multimedia-enabled databases.
Historically, the need for
MAM has gone hand-in-hand with
continuing moves to majority filebased content working throughout
the content value chain. This chain
may be summarised as Produce/
acquire; Ingest/import; Search/ view;
Annotate/log; Edit/format; Outgest/
export; and Deliver/distribute.
What makes MAM essential
for the file-based age is, of course,
the total invisibility of content,
committed largely to non-removable data storage, and thus the
absence of human readable clues
as to the ‘what’ and ‘where’ aspects.
Modern MAM (or DAM, if
you prefer) has become increasingly intertwined with the
‘essential tools’ of our industry,
whether these tools address the
content value chain from left to
right, as in production-leaning
applications; right to left, as in
distribution-leaning applications;
or even middle-out. The reason
for this growing intimacy relates
to the ‘hidden agenda’ of MAM
— the real reason that customers
buy – namely the search for business improvement through gains
in workflow efficiency. While
MAM may have ‘gone light’ on
rights management, it has ‘gone
heavy’ on workflow management.
Such efficiency gains may be
had through the adoption/application of MAM products falling into
one or more categories, including:
Tool/function specific (eg, Edit seat
helpers); Workgroup specific (eg,
Collaborative production enablers);
Another DAM demo: The real reason customers buy is linked to the
search for business improvements through gains in workflow efficiency
Business function specific (eg,
News to air/channel playout/VoD
delivery); and Enterprise (eg,
Corporate assets inventory/brand
asset management).
Whatever category of MAM
product you are looking for, a business case will almost certainly need to
be made to support any investment.
While tool-specific MAM products
time is money…
are often shrink-wrapped and priced
to be comparable with that of the
tools they are helping, business function products can attract price tags
involving up to three more zeros.
The business case for MAM
Making a good business case for
MAM means being able to
accept, indeed, expect and even
insist, that the introduction of
MAM is not going to result in a
mere like-for-like replacement of
custom and practice business
workflow(s). The business case
will of course look different
depending on whether the proposed project is production- or
distribution-leaning, or some
combination of both.
If the project is productionleaning, then being timely with a
new piece of content and/or the
potential re-use value of content
typically governs priorities.
Distribution-leaning MAM projects however often revolve around
the (further) ‘industrialisation’ of
those parts of the value chain that
are somewhat more ‘mechanical’
in nature. Process improvement
here represents a good way of
lowering the cost base of the ‘factory’ in getting a finished product
out to waiting customers.
Enterprise
MAM
often
remains the hardest to get to grips
with, as the absolute need/expected benefits can appear less tangible. Some organisations perceive a
need for enterprise MAM by
virtue of them having an unclear
understanding of the needs and
business case(s) for what should
properly be one or more ‘domain’
based solutions. Fortunately, it is
becoming more widely recognised
that, just as enterprises operated
in the past with multiple ‘MAM’
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8/5/09
10:48
Page 17
is being managed. Extension of
this, leads quickly to shot logging/
collection and/or rough-cut editing on the desktop. In some
cases, the desktop edit tool set is
now far less ‘rough’- and far more
‘craft’-capable, including the
ability to off-seat render edits at
some higher resolution.
The cost of a MAM seat with
edit functionality can compare
Mark Hill: What makes MAM essential
for the file-based age is, of course,
the total invisibility of content
systems, so they will continue to do
in future, as no one single system is
capable of best addressing multiple (disparate) business needs.
very favourably with the cost of a
dedicated edit seat and could be
up to 10 times less than the cost of
a ‘full-facilities’ NLE suite. Such
editing within MAM — invariably ‘edit in place’ (no content
moved in the process) — can represent an effective and efficient
contribution to industrialisation.
The ever-increasing number of
different formats for file-based
content (combinations of standard, codec, wrapper, etc) brings
with it the need for controllable,
industrial-scale, dependable transcoding to move from one format
to another. For customers looking to share of SD and HD
content freely between SD and
HD delivery points, without
maintaining separate inventories,
servicing this need is crucial to
keeping operating costs under
control. It is entirely sensible,
therefore, that the tight (APIlevel) integration of third party
specialist transcoding product is
encountered as a requirement in
almost every MAM project.
Still on the integration front,
several MAM product manufacContinued on page 18
There are many reasons for you to choose the Nova73 HD.
Here are the most important.
Cost of MAM
The cost of implementing MAM
today still varies hugely with the
type, scope and scale of deployment; the number of third-party
systems touch-points; and general
‘market forces’. For example, an
edit seat helper/small workgroup
production-facing MAM product,
such as Apple’s Final Cut Server,
may be purchased in softwareonly form for less than €1,000.
On the other hand, a turnkey
MAM solution for industrialising
the workflow of a medium scale
broadcaster, having perhaps 4-8
linear TV services, plus some webbased on demand delivery and
150 users, might result in a software-only bill of around €1 million,
to which might have to be added
the same again for professional
services (configuration; customisation; integration; training; etc)
and then again for hardware.
Benefits of MAM
Aside from the ‘cannot do without
it’ nature of MAM once majority
file-based working is embraced,
MAM today is more capable than
ever of bringing demonstrable
benefits to most organisations.
When building a business case
for a MAM-centric project, benefits should always be chased down
in their most tangible forms. Easy
targets remain such items as reductions in physical media shipping
costs; shelf storage costs; stock and
dubbing costs; VTR maintenance;
etc. It is to be expected, however,
that, as with the move from linear
videotape to nonlinear editing,
some (hopefully small) element of
intangibility will remain. This may
be akin to the, ‘if I have an NLE,
some of the time I save over the
mechanics of tape-based editing, I
will reuse to explore getting a better creative result’, argument.
Over the years, MAM systems
have taken on various component
functionalities in an effort to prove
themselves useful. After being able
to retrieve some previously committed content, the most basic of
these functionalities is the ability
to view and hear the content that
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17
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Media Agent
for change
into a document that went out as
information to a broad group of
suppliers. When they responded it
created an RFP, and submitted
that to a smaller group of suppliers.
It also decided to split what it had
seen as one large project into two
— getting content in, and managing it internally.
“Everything had its origins
in 2006, with a bespoke system
created in co-operation with E!
Entertainment,” says Try. “The system provides for the direct delivery
of schedules and content using the
Internet. All content is created and
archived in LA in a ‘transmission
ready’ format and there are two
processes that can trigger a transfer.
The first, a ‘push,’ is initiated when
content is created. The second,
when a schedule is loaded in
Amsterdam an automatic check of
materials generates a missing material list, which is sent as an XML
file to LA. This initiates a ‘push’ of
the content over the internet from
LA to Amsterdam. The transfer
process runs faster than realtime
and means that E! can produce
content only a few hours before the
required TX time.
“E! developed the core technology for the delivery system and
the interface between E! and
Amsterdam was done by DMC,” he
adds. “The interface with the E! sys-
MAM through
the value chain
turers have begun integrating
third-party specialist content
quality checking (QC) tools to
augment, if not yet replace, the
skills of the QC operator. If full
benefit is to be had from the
move to file-based operations,
then users must be able to trust
that, when a 100GB HD movie is
saved, copied, moved, transcoded
etc, that the integrity of the
result is unimpeachable without
a user having to check it after
each operation.
tems in LA was developed there
and integrated with its environment. Although the delivery system
might have been adapted, the real
benefit of the whole operation is the
completely automated workflow
that it enables through tight integration with the existing infrastructure
at both ends.”
Ambitions to roll out the E!
system for other clients lost out to
the desire to expand and find a
special system, so what is it that
Signiant brought to the party?
“Signiant is used for the delivery
of media content from a number of
client locations into Amsterdam,
and the transfer of materials out to
language studios and subtitling
operations,” says Try. “When media
is received at the DMC, the files are
moved to the appropriate place to
allow them to continue to move
through our normal workflows.
For example, broadcast video files
are re-packaged in our internal format and moved to the ingest server
for QC. Audio files would move to
the archive for automated Trakstak
and so on. We have used Signiant
beyond the DMZ that marks the
boundary between internal and
external systems and now use it to
trigger movements internally too,”
he adds. “It isn’t the answer to every
requirement we identified at the
outset of the project, but it is going
part of the way.”
Part of the asset
In the first instance DMC is sending MPEG files out to language
studios. It can get subtitling work
done locally, but language work is
And the big one — workflow!
There being few other candidates,
MAM systems have boldly
stepped forward to embody the
definitions of customers’ workflows and thus help manage them.
Many MAM systems are now just
as much workflow management
tools as they are content management ones. This (and in particular
the ability to easily change the
workflow definitions in the MAM
system) is a still developing area.
SOA anybody? There is a lot
of talk at present about ServiceOrientated Architecture (SOA).
Crudely, SOA represents a more
logical way of ‘wiring up’ (in data
exchange terms) disparate business IT-centric systems within an
Jonathan Try: “Despite the fact
that equipment gets smaller, it still
uses as much power and generates
as much heat”
done in the target countries. One of
its most important tools, around
MOV headers, is Suitcase’s Trakstak.
“This product works by taking a
newly delivered .wav file containing
the new language and matching it
to the correct video asset using
the UPN (Unique Programme
Number) stored in our CMS database,” says Try. “It updates the MOV
header to indicate the file is part of
the asset and marks the content for
QC. During QC, the operators check
the matched file for content and timing and can adjust as necessary.”
Previously at DMC everything
coming from clients was on Digital
Betacam and sometimes Beta SP.
Try describes the changes. “Automated ingest as an example of how
the existing process is adaptable to
take in content digitally without radical change,” he says. “The emphasis
has already moved on from an ingest
operator actually performing ingest
organisation. Many MAM products, through their adoption of
web services technology, are now
at the point of being ‘SOA ready’.
While there is general agreement
that SOA is a sound, logical idea,
it seems it may be some while
until a majority of media organisations consider that some ‘critical mass’ in IT systems (including
MAM) has been reached to justify the perceived necessary additional investment.
In economically troubled
times, appetite to embrace risk
typically shrinks. This further
encourages organisations to
look to address MAM needs
within their business with perceived low-risk ‘products’ as
opposed to high risk, services-
DMC does lots of HD production
work, Try says: “The HD studio was
built primarily for our sports cover-
age, which is dominated by Sports
One, the premium Dutch HD
service. We have two 24/7 channels
running a mix of live and repeats.
On the postproduction side
DMC boasts a Quantel SQ Edit system. “We record incoming matches
into the Quantel servers and let the
editors cut as soon as the content is
in. We also use the SQ for slo-mos
and action replays,” says Try. “We
also have five Avid suites and two
older linear suites we still use occasionally. The two audio suites are
very high end, so too the computer
graphics facility, and we have three
dedicated voice-over booths.”
To run the Signiant software
DMC had to buy the server hardware, and the hardware for running
the client ends. It had everything
else, and its bandwidth is limitless.
Staff looking at content can browse
at two levels – an in-house one of
30MB I frame or the lower value
MPEG-1 at 1MB.
Try has a very clear viewpoint
on technical frustrations. He says:
“Despite the fact that equipment
gets smaller, it still uses as much
power and generates as much heat.
We are looking to be more environmentally responsible. We state in
any RFP that we are looking for
solutions that help us to achieve
our environmental aims.
“In an increasingly competitive
market, the ability to cut costs while
simultaneously improving our service is a terrific advantage,” he adds.
“In the overall cost, digital delivery
does give significant cost savings to
clients, but everyone wants a share
in the advantage!”
heavy, ‘science projects’. This is
particularly important in those
sensitive parts of the content
factory that encompass the principal revenue earning operation.
Where it is recognised that
multiple MAM systems within an
organisation is entirely normal,
more clearly position their products in the marketplace, is helping to reduce implementation
risk and deliver real benefits,
against sensible budgets, in sensible timeframes.
Against the harsh lessons of
the last few years — and a now
to one where they spend their time
on quality checking. This change
came about as the result of automating the ingest process. Almost everything will have been ingested somewhere, so we can just convert and
keep it in our archive.”
Try lives in a mixed SD and HD
world. Will SD be doomed sometime soon? And what about 3D?
“There is an ever-healthy flow of
enquiries at the moment, and they
are predominantly for SD playout.
We are not planning a funeral for
SD yet,” he says. “We are pumping
out a lot of HD though, and the
final move to HD will be driven
very much from the consumer end.
“3D? I was fairly sceptical about
the introduction of HD, because I
had seen SD bandwidths driven
down to the absolute limits. I see HD
as getting us back to the level of
quality SD should have been years
ago,” he adds. “Right now HD is
ring fenced, and the manufacturers
are producing better encoders. HD
will certainly improve and people will
start to see the quality achievable for
large-screen displays. 3D would only
consume even more bandwidth.
“There are always going to be
bandwidth limitations, which will
lead to a trade off between the number of, and the quality of individual
channels,” he continues. “The other
big trend is being driven by clients
asking us to make more of their content suitable for VoD platforms.”
Eight ties at once
The cost of a MAM seat with edit functionality
can compare very favourably with the cost of a
dedicated edit seat and could be up to 10 times
less than the cost of a ‘full-facilities’ NLE suite
customers are now far less likely
to be looking for a single solution
for the whole of their business.
This, together with the trend on
the part of the manufacturers to
much improved understanding by
customers and suppliers of what
MAM can and cannot facilitate
— the outlook for modern-day
MAM remains bright.
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18
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Sharing and storing content over vast geographical distances
DIVAworks for RFO content
By Rino Petricola,
Front Porch Digital
Reseau France Outre-Mer (RFO)
was one of Front Porch Digital’s
very first customers, having implemented our content storage management technology, DIVArchive
(Distributed Intelligent Versatile
Archive), in the late 1990s at its
stations in Martinique, Guadeloupe,
and French Guiana, and at its
headquarters facility in Paris. Thus
RFO was quick to recognise the
potential of newer sister technology
DIVAworks to support news production capabilities at four far-flung
RFO stations — Papeete, French
Polynesia; Saint Pierre and
Miquelon; Saint Denis, La Reunion;
and Noumea, New Caledonia. The
broadcaster will also soon implement the system at its stations
in Martinique, Guadeloupe and
French Guiana.
Even the smallest digital
broadcasters add file-based content every day and eventually run
out of space on their video
servers. As reliable as RAID storage has become, there is always
20
the possibility of a hardware
failure and resulting loss of irreplaceable assets. Thus the most
cost-effective way both to expand
storage and to safeguard content
is to archive it to a data tape
library. Using a CSM solution
enables an organisation to be sure
that wherever content is stored, it
can be found and retrieved efficiently as needed.
DIVAworks is a turnkey CSM
system for archiving on a small or
entry-level scale. A plug-and-play
solution, with different configurations, it comprises a LTO-4 datatape library, a storage disk, and
Windows-based servers running
DIVArchive CSM software.
RFO simultaneously deployed
DIVAworks at all four stations
and is now adding the system to
an additional three of its stations,
which represents a significant
expansion of the Front Porch
presence within the organisation
and laid the foundation for the
eventual sharing of content across
the vast geographic distances that
separate its facilities. Now, instead
of relying on more expensive onair video servers (which offer less
space at higher cost) RFO’s four
RFO: The broadcaster will also soon implement the system at its stations in Martinique, Guadeloupe and French Guiana
(soon to be seven) smallest stations store content securely and
inexpensively on data tape with
DIVA ensuring that all content —
stored on data tape or on disk —
remains under the wider system
umbrella and easily transferable
and retrievable for news production or other creative projects.
At RFO, field and studio
footage is captured primarily
with Panasonic P2 cameras and
ingested via DIVAworks with
MXF compatibility into an Avid
Unity/Interplay
environment.
This configuration enables RFO
to make content available to
about 40 journalists working at
their desktops. The journalists’
desktop interface gives them fast
and accurate control for playback
of all types of audio, video, and
metadata, whether it is stored on
DIVAworks or has entered the
facility over a network.
“Because we have been able to
take advantage of Front Porch’s
knowledge and experience, we
don’t have the worries about managing and repurposing our media
assets that so many other broadcasters face,” said Christian
Augereau, director of technology
at RFO. “We can face the future
with confidence.”
Rino Petricola is senior vice
president, managing director for
Front Porch Digital International
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MediaCityUK is a new player joining a set of industries in flux
Networking the future of media
the essence of what we design,”
Carr says.
MCUK is fortunate that it is not
the first to transition to a tapeless
networked environment and can
learn from past mistakes. “Our aim
is to deliver something new with
experts scarred from previous digital
workflow projects,” says Carr. “The
downside is that almost any decision
we make now, given delivery in 2011,
almost certainly will not be right.
Since it will inevitably be legacy by
the time that it’s implemented we
can’t worry about it. We have to cast
a decision at some point.”
MCUK is a new player joining
a set of industries in flux. “There
are issues of basic workflow
terminology and of standards
about which everyone has their
Artist impression: “Our aim is to deliver something new with experts scarred from previous digital workflow
projects,” says Director of Operations David Carr. “The downside is that almost any decision we make now, given
delivery in 2011, almost certainly will not be right”
By Adrian Pennington
In Salford Quays in Manchester
the MediaCityUK project is rapidly taking shape with the first
building, for the BBC, officially
opening this September (although
not operational until January
2011). What has yet to be installed,
or even specified, is the underlying
network infrastructure that will
glue the enterprise together. It’s a
mammoth task that must account
for production workflows across
multiple media in a future that can
only be guessed at.
Peel Media, the division within site developers Peel Holdings
that is managing the project, intends
to create the largest purpose-built
media community in Europe. To
achieve this MCUK needs a
shared media infrastructure that
will aggregate demand across
multiple clients to deliver the benefits of scale.
David Carr — who has experience at most levels of the industry
from Teddington Studios and M2
Post Production to Charter
Broadcast and most recently as
Sky’s Head of Production (Studios)
— is Director of Operations and
part of a new management team
at MCUK tasked with bringing
the vision to reality. With him
is Steve Sharman, CTO and cofounder of workflow consultants
Mediasmiths. Previously IBM’s
chief architect for its Media
business, Sharman is working
alongside systems integrator TSL
firstly to model MCUK’s digital
network infrastructure and secondly to specify and implement
the core components.
The only specified facility is
for a complex of seven HD
studios between 900-12,000sqft
and an audio studio, managed by
Peel Media for hire to the BBC or
others. A second audio studio is
dictated to BBC Philharmonic.
Beyond that the broad plan
includes fully resilient external
network connectivity; dark fibre
routed across site, FTTH to hotels
and residential blocks; unified IP
communications and a public and
private wireless network.
“Bearing in mind that we have
no idea going forward how we
will receive content or what that
content will be, flexibility must be
into insignificance beside the global
distribution needs of the web.”
MCUK is not alone. The BBC
is undergoing massive change with
the introduction of DMI (Digital
Media Initiative) and also relocating BBC News to Broadcasting
House; Sky is making significant
investment in new working environments as part of its move to
Harlequin One at Osterley. ESPN
is making global investments in
tapeless technology.
“We are all trying to address similar issues,” says Sharman. Top of
the list are environmental concerns.
“The cost of running a digital media
environment is massive. It involves a
lot of computing power so we need
to bring those costs down. Secondly
we all need production for delivery
“Most of the systems in the broadcast market
have not been designed to cope with a shared
environment. Most industry equipment is bought
to operate in just one place for one company”
— Steve Sharman, chief technical officer
own interpretation,” he says.
“Just getting several computer
systems to talk to each other is
incredibly painful. Frankly, getting efficient HD workflows is
still a challenge and we’re now
talking about 3D HD workflow.
But even the challenge of dealing
with broadcast workflows pales
to at least three, often four, screens
(TV, mobile, PC and games console). Thirdly, we might ask how we
can use our combined clout to entice
vendors on-board.”
Carr is keen to implement 3G
technology throughout the
21
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MCUK infrastructure, “but the
question is ‘are manufacturers
going to have it available’?
Because ourselves, Sky and BBC
are pushing manufacturers at the
same time with similar demands
and timeframes there is scope to
speed up development because
there are potentially enough customers for a product.”
Technology investment decisions
are normally based on specific
organisational requirements, existing vendor relationships and an
existing procurement strategy. A
standard equipment refresh
means knowing what you want do
to over a defined period of time.
“We don’t have any of that,”
stresses Sharman. “We are at the
start of a 20 year plus journey.
We don’t have a captive client
or an installed base of vendor
relationships – not necessarily a
bad thing. We need to engage with
just about every vendor simultaneously and establish a shared
infrastructure in the midst of a
sceptical industry.”
A proprietary attitude
Sharman admitted it was hard to
balance the needs of broadcast —
and the BBC in particular — with
what the broader media industry
might need. “Our offering must
suit the BBC, at the same time it
must fit the project’s unique vision
which is to build a media community that leverages scale.”
The key is to establish a
shared infrastructure. “The
industry has a very proprietary
attitude but one that no-one can
afford any more. If we’re in that
situation in 2011 we will have
failed. We only want to invest in
technology once. Broadcast is the
primary base but there are other
industries we must address.”
Ultimately it’s about ‘make,
manage, move’ but this process
will be different for broadcast, or
Peel Media, the division within site developers Peel Holdings that is managing the
project, intends to create the largest purpose-built media community in Europe
games development or digital
media. “Build it and they will
come is not a popular financial
strategy in the current climate,”
Sharman adds with due irony.
Nor does Peel Media intend to
supply all the services on site. It
hopes to partner with other service
industries (post production, kit hire,
IT support being some) but it does
need to frame the network offering.
So what should this network
look like? Sharman outlined the
key principals.
“We’re taking cues from the
cost advantages gained in retail
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Networking the
future of media
supply and process engineering
and bringing that into our
design,” he explained. “One
objective is to provide a cloud
[computing] which organisations
can tap into to deliver their business objectives while we [Peel] do
the heavy lifting of storage and
ingest, for example. We need to
take the common needs of ‘make,
manage, move’ of a number of
diverse clients and build an architecture around that.
“We need to bring content in,
store it, protect it, recall information about it and design a logical
architecture that could be patched
together in building blocks. We
need to avoid creating thousands
of islands and of people having to
do repeat tasks.”
The commonalities of these
building blocks are computing
power, storage including long-term
tape archive, asset management and
content transformation — be that
encoding, transcoding or wrapping
files at the application level.
“Process and workflow have to
be at the core of what we do and
frankly from a Peel Media perspective so does knowing who
people are and what we can
charge them in CRM or billing.”
Most clients of course are far
from familiar with the concept
of a shared infrastructure within their core production environments. “Most of the systems in
the broadcast market have not
been designed to be able to cope
with a shared environment,”
stressed Sharman. “Most industry equipment is bought to operate in just one place for one company while we are proposing to
put more than one client on the
same platform. Since clients
have different security requirements MCUK has to generate a
lot of trust.”
All of this will inform just the
first 36-acres and initial £500 million investment in phase one of
Peel Media’s grander plan for the
full 200-acre site.
“The way we design workflow
now is not necessarily the way it
will work in future,” emphasises
Carr. “The key to that is to provide common ways of dealing
with the problems inherent in all
digital workflows.”
TVBE May P8-31 IT
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Page 24
How Fox Channels increased its media and equipment assets in Athens
NEWS
IN BRIEF
Evertz converts
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allowing for two conversions from
a single input.
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Cable for Sommer
The Sommer Cable main
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product range that offers
everything from cable bulkware
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technology sectors including the
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in the Sommer Cable catalogue
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Unattended automatic
remote playout via web
By Don Ash, sales director,
PlayBox Technology
Having successfully set up and
launched the Fox Life channel,
broadcast on the Sky Italia platform in Italy, Fox Channels Italy
wanted to make more use of its
media and equipment assets to set
up two Fox channels in Athens,
Greece. As with the Italian channels, the Greek channels needed
to have a local look with their own
Greek branding and commercials.
Normally this would mean
adding this material on site in
Greece or using fibre or satellite
video links to send it to the site.
Both would add considerably to
the cost of running the channels
while much of the required
equipment and personnel to supply and schedule the content was
already on site in Italy. So the
plan was made to place a totally
automated playout facility in
Athens that would be supplied,
operated, monitored and maintained from Fox’s Rome broadcast centre.
PlayBox Technology became
involved in the project and supplied a turnkey solution to meet
the Fox requirements economically
and in a way that could be widely
applied. It resulted in a remote
automated playout solution nick-
The FoxBox team from Fox Channels Italy (top left to bottom right): Stefano
Baldas, supervisor broadcast content management; Claudio Prosperi, senior
coordinator IT; Julio Sobral, SVP head of Operations; Daniele Fioramonti,
IT HW & SW specialist; Mauro Panella, director Broadcast Operations & IT;
and Maurizio Raffaeli, MAM supervisor
named ‘FoxBox’ — signifying the
contributions of both companies
in this work. Julio Sobral, SVP
Head of Operations Fox International Channels comments,
“We have countries where playout
and satellite would not justify a
dedicated feed with local promos
and commercials. FoxBox helps
us maximise the usage of our content by decreasing the distribution
cost and allowing us to reach new
New applications and solutions for the demanding and changing
Broadcast world – fixed and mobile microwave links, wireless
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smaller markets in Europe with
localised channels.”
Although IT-based equipment
is extensively used, completing
this project required a deep
understanding of IT and broadcast engineering, and making the
best use of both technologies, as
appropriate. Mauro Panella,
director of Broadcast Operations
and IT at Fox says, “The idea of
this project is to have IT people
working in the broadcast environment and vice versa. This solution
gave us the opportunity of doing
that and it is located in the server
room, not the machine room. But
this is the best place to store all
the file-based material.”
Significantly, the link between
the Athens and Rome sites is
totally via public internet and
does not make use of the usual
video links. This meets the
needs of the project and saves on
operating costs. The automated
remote
package
comprises
PlayBox servers, internet connections and firewalls as well as a
host of additional equipment to
keep the station running reliably.
This amounts to 14 RU of equipment for a single and 16RU for a
dual on-air channel.
All operations for the Athens
channels, Fox Life and Fox Life
+1, take place at the Rome site
and revolve around working with
the existing Fox facilities. These
include Pilat Media’s IBMS
(Integrated Broadcast Management System) for traffic management and creating the schedules,
and the MAM and Ingest
Manager from Gorilla Science
& Technology.
Maurizio Raffaeli is the MAM
Supervisor. “Our operation
involves ingest from Digibetacam
to create media files in hi-res for
editing and transcoding, and
low-res for proxy browsing. Also
we are responsible for all the
transcoding using Telestream Flip
Factory; so we can accept
anything and send anything.
Although we are involved with
FoxBox it has not involved extra
facilities for us.”
Schedules created in IBMS for
Athens are converted to the
PlayBox Technology PLY playlist
format and sent to the remote
PlayBox AirBox playout servers
which then request any missing
media indicated in the schedule
from the existing MAM/storage
in Rome. As this was initially set
up for local Italian transmission
most video files are relatively
large and not ideal for large-scale
internet distribution. In these
cases the files are automatically
transcoded via Flip Factory and
transferred via internet to Athens
for remote playout. If the files
already exist in the chosen internet distribution format, they are
immediately transferred.
The FoxBox project provides
locally branded playout with
local commercials. The commercials break into two types: worldwide, that Fox already has access
to, and local. The latter can be
TVBE May P8-31 IT
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Page 25
created and ingested on a
PlayBox CaptureBox locally in
Athens and sent to Fox in Rome
via the internet link, for quality
checking and inclusion into the
Athens ‘local’ programming.
The remote operation is extensively protected against loss of
data and on-air transmission.
This starts with the data transfer
from Rome. Fox has already
worked with Signiant Digital
Transfer Manager and so is well
able to deliver data over less than
perfect data links, ensuring the
correct delivery over the internet
that is essential to the success of
this project.
Although Signiant is highly
reliable, two identical versions of
the media are transferred to main
and backup AirBox playout
servers at the Remote Playout
Centre. If any inaccuracy in the
transfer of one of the files is not
flagged by Signiant, the data
should still be OK on the other
server. There is a considerable
automated procedure in place to
check the data has arrived that
will request a resend, if required.
The remote equipment for one
TV channel includes two AirBox
servers to provide fully backed-up
redundant playout. Each server
also includes TitleBox for animated
logos or more advanced interactive graphics and CG. TitleBox is
scheduled in the traffic system
and many different projects and
templates can be created using
TitleBox preparation and sent to
the AirBox/TitleBox server to be
used in playout.
Many of the glue products are
from Crystal Vision and include
Smart Switch that monitors the
output of the two AirBoxes and
can switch over if the on-air output
should fail. The whole rack itself
has a complete bypass so that an
AirBox can go straight to the output if required. The monitoring of
the two (main and backup)
AirBoxes and the final output is
provided by SlingBox as an IP
stream back to Fox in Italy, where
all three outputs (from two
AirBoxes and the Smart Switch)
can be seen. The entire system has
SNMP monitoring of all consistent
parts. This data comes back to an
HP Omniview which can be used at
Fox in Rome or at its disaster recovery centre in Los Angeles.
Other services offered by standard PlayBox modules are also a
part of the package. For example,
where subtitling is required the
media then has a subtitle file
attached to it. The SNMP monitoring reports back as to whether
the subtitling file is there, or not,
on both the AirBox servers.
SubtitleBox, included with the
servers, can then playout the subtitles with the programme output.
This way subtitling becomes automatic and only reports if there is a
problem with the file. There are
four high quality audio tracks
available and these can be split to
offer a multilingual service.
Maurizio Raffaeli explains
how FoxBox came about. “A
“The idea of this project is to have IT people
working in the broadcast environment and
vice versa. This solution allowed us to do that
and is located in the server room, not the
machine room” — Mauro Panella
while ago we had the idea of a
peer-to-peer network using all
file-based media. Then, using
the internet connections we
could put the ‘machine’ anywhere and send the necessary
files. Now we have the solution
by PlayBox Technology and the
media by Fox.”
Today there are FoxBoxes
providing customised promos
and commercials catering for
three operators in Athens,
Greece. Sobral reports that,
“Initially the workflow and the
processes involved had to be
tweaked. Now everything is
working fine, integrated with our
Gorilla MAM and we have the
‘legal’ compliance monitoring
recordings coming back into the
office.” He adds, “We had been
looking for a way to reach new
remote markets in an economic
way and FoxBox does just that.
This is a model that we can repeat
anywhere around the world that
has an internet connection.”
25
TVBE May P8-31 IT
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IT and broadcast: Are we there yet?
as a single, massive data network,
which carries all data traffic and
voice traffic, and interconnects
with other BBC Scotland offices.
It has now been running for just
over a year and all production is
IT-based.
It sometimes sends JPEG2000
or MPEG-4 streams between
offices for some channels, but
John Maxwell Hobbs, BBC
Scotland’s head of technology,
admits it has also had problems
caused by redundancy. “When we
had a non-resilient network it
would work perfectly, but we are
trying to get it back to optimal
with redundancy again.”
Ascent
uses
“broadcast
standards” when it is setting up
networks. “We start with a
Conference Analysis
A few years ago, broadcast
conferences were discussing the
idea of Information Technology
versus Broadcasting. Now it is ‘IT
meets Broadcast’, soon it will be
‘Broadcast is IT’, Adrian Scott,
founder of the Bakewell House
Consultancy, told delegates at a
session on IT meets Broadcast
at the recent BVE event.
David Fox reports
It would be ideal if a single media
network could be suited to all
broadcast needs, and it looks as if
some sort of internet protocolbased system would be the best
choice. But how feasible is it?
“It’s realistic,” said David
Harney, Cisco’s business development manager for the UK and
Ireland. “If we look at the changes
in how people want to consume
content; they want to consume it
anywhere, on pretty much any
device, at any time.” But it doesn’t
necessarily mean that broadcasters
need to change their entire infrastructure in one fell swoop, which
would be a huge challenge.
The conference workflow: (L/R) BBC Scotland’s John Maxwell Hobbs,
Ascent Media Group’s Steve Samwell, and David Harney from Cisco Systems
Of course, an IT infrastructure, at least for delivery, is not yet
suitable for the needs of live
events or news, at least for mass
consumption, added session
Chairman Adrian Scott.
Ascent Media Group’s broadcast customers are doing both
file-based playout and live distribution, and inserting any live
video into a stream is still done
by reverting to baseband. When
you want to move beyond standard digital terrestrial and digital
satellite output to include live
streaming, and most broadcasters do, you need to build in
redundancy. “But, where it tends
to fall down is where it is too
complicated with failsafes and
redundancy. The failsafes sometimes cause the problem,”
“Any savings are in the workflow, in that you
can turn a package around more quickly. It’s
your workflow that dictates if you see any cost
savings from IT” – Steve Samwell, Ascent
explained
Steve
Samwell,
Ascent’s director of technology.
When BBC Scotland built its
Pacific Quay studios it designed it
broadcast network infrastructure as the core, then add on
internet switches, but treat
them as if we were adding video
R
26
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switches,”
which
Samwell
believes has reduced problems.
“If you want it to be easy, don’t
be the first to do it,” added
Maxwell Hobbs. “If you’re looking to push things forward, that
puts you in a position to do things
with new technologies as they
come along, then you need to be
bold.” BBC Scotland chose to
move to IP-based networks
because it saw that IP would be the
basis of any future technology.
Samwell agrees that there is a
big difference. “Time to fix is the
biggest challenge. A number of
years ago, the first transcoding
systems we bought were softwarebased and sat in the IT office for
weeks because a check box said:
‘Interlaced or Progressive’, and
the IT people didn’t understand it.
So, now we have specialists that
understand broadcast, even if
they are primarily IT engineers,
as it still has to be done to broadcast standards.”
Harney believes that the gulf
between IT and broadcast is similar to what it was 10 years ago in
the telecommunications industry
when it was adopting IP as its
transport layer. “It’s a cultural
and technical gulf that has to be
bridged, but it can be done.”
One problem is the age of the
typical broadcast engineer. At one
Belgian station their average age
is 55, and this isn’t an isolated
case, said Scott, so IT-trained
people will have to take on more
broadcast skills.
“When we built Discovery
Network’s facility in West London,
we bought soldering irons, and
other tools, but four years on they
haven’t been used,” said Samwell.
“Now maintenance is about software and board replacement.”
“You can’t overlook the effect
it has on people using the systems
and how they get fixed. When
something breaks down, people
are accustomed to it being fixed
by someone bearing a tweaker.
Raising standards
“Broadcasters always say everything needs to be standardsbased, and manufacturers come
back and say: ‘Here’s our new
standard’,” said Maxwell Hobbs.
“In the IT world, you can’t sell a
printer unless it’s compatible with
every PC, but we are light years
away from plug and play for
broadcast technology because
many broadcast manufacturers
see standards as bad for their
business,” said Scott.
“It is a huge issue, particularly
at the software applications layer,
making applications talk to each
other,” added Samwell. “You get
around it by going back to serial
and GPI.”
A key issue is file format standards. He has been evaluating
a lot of plug-in-a-box systems,
and “they fall down on playing
file standards.”
“In the IT world there are
lots of open standards, whereas
broadcast is a bit of a minefield,”
said Harney. “Obviously, where
standards exist you work with
those, but where they don’t you
have to work with manufacturers
to ensure that what you need are
added. In the IT world, standards emerge from something
that works.”
“It’s still very difficult, it’s
very frustrating, getting manufacturers to integrate,” said
Maxwell Hobbs. “For example, if
you want to do grading out of
house, you have to confirm that
the third party is using the same
file formats and version of the
software. Sometimes you have to
go out to tape, but you can’t do
that too often.”
Culture shock
“There are perceived to be cultural differences between the IT
world and the broadcast world,
but is that really still an issue, or is
it going away?”, asked Scott.
“There is a difference. In
Scotland, our broadcast engineering support has been outsourced to Siemens, and they are
the same people doing our IT,
but they are trying to bring the
two aspects together,” said
Maxwell Hobbs. You have to get
an agreed definition of ‘quick’ or
‘quality’, or what ‘data integrity’
means. “IT wants every pixel to
go through, whereas broadcast
wants perfect timing but doesn’t
mind timing glitches.” Certainly,
at the moment, he believes that
a degree of specialisation is a
good thing.
27
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IT and broadcast:
Are we there yet?
Now you say ‘the server is glitching’ and they say ‘why don’t you
replace it with a working server’,”
added Maxwell Hobbs.
“The individual bits of kit
hardly ever fail in their own right;
it’s where they intersect that
things go wrong,” said Scott.
Perhaps it needs better training. “In the IT world there is still a
skills shortage. Cisco invests in
network academies to ensure it has
the skills it needs. In the telco
world 10 years ago you had no IP
skills, but you do now. It can take
“In the IT world there is still a skills shortage.
It can take a decade to migrate a whole
industry, but a company or sector can do it more
quickly” — David Harney, Cisco Systems
a decade to migrate a whole industry, but a company or sector can
do it more quickly,” said Harney.
Scott believes that the current
financial troubles may make it
easier to encourage staff to adopt
new working practices. “Many
have been resistant to change, but
the next year of so may force
people to take stock of this.”
When it comes to your digital content workflow,
one company gives you the
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Perhaps this is an opportunity for
broadcasters “to reset expectations in this area.”
The BBC has an ambition that
its new media village in
Manchester will include post
houses and independent production companies moving material
backwards and forwards to and
from the BBC, post and transmission, something Maxwell Hobbs
believes would be “nearly impossible” in a traditional broadcast
infrastructure. To do it properly
would need compromises, such as
removing firewalls.
The only practical solution, he
believes, is to “protect the material,
protect the applications, and leave
the network wide open. If you rely
on a firewall, you have a single
point of failure and you’re assuming that everything going on
inside the firewall is OK. If you
protect the media assets and individual machines, you become far
more flexible and probably far
more secure.”
“Don’t treat the business and
business processes and security as
separate,” advised Harney.
“A network can have many
leaks, but making sure people
can’t tamper with the network (ie
keeping individual rooms protected) is more important than the
network itself,” said Samwell.
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28
Is there a significant cost saving
from IT? “I don’t think there is,”
said Samwell. “We still need to
apply various levels of redundancy
and work-around that bring the
cost back to that of broadcast
infrastructure. Any savings are in
the workflow, in that you can turn
a package around more quickly.
It’s your workflow that dictates if
you see any cost savings from IT.”
“Are you going to get savings
on your technology budget? No.
But it gives you the potential of
saving on production,” stated
Maxwell Hobbs. “But you have
to make changes in production to
take advantage of the possibilities. You won’t get savings in
post, generally, because it takes
what it takes.”
“If you look at the likes of BT,
a decade ago it maybe had 25 different networks, 25 different management systems, 25 different
infrastructures. Now it has one,
which means a lot of cost savings,” said Harney. “It may not be
cost savings everywhere, but if
you are looking at trunk links and
want to replace multiple trunk
links with IP, you can get savings.
“It is possible to get IP infrastructure to mimic anything you
want, different traffic pipes on
common infrastructure, and get
the benefit of flexibility. I think
it’s the flexibility to do things
differently and roll out new
applications or services quickly
that is where you get cost savings
over time.”
www.ascentmedia.com
www.bakewellhouse.com
www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/
www.cisco.com
TVBE May P8-31 IT
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Red workflow action
Red Masterclass
Managing Red from acquisition to post has
a tricky reputation. “When you show it to
people it’s unbelievably simple,” explains
Red expert James Milner-Smyth. Interview
by Adrian Pennington
The Post Factory is a camera hire, training
and workflow consultancy which has
provided its expertise for two productions
currently shooting on Red: Freestyle, an
independent UK feature and Cast Offs,
a six times 60-minute Channel 4
drama from Eleven Film about six
disabled characters spending a shipwrecked-style year on a desert island.
“The primary reason to shoot Red is
the film-style look,” says James MilnerSmyth, director and CTO of The Post
Factory. “Everyone thinks working with
Red is a struggle. And it is if you work
bily three) off-the-shelf backup drives
using R3D Data manager on a Macbook
Pro on set (although the backup drives
should be FAT32 formatted to allow for
easy use in multi-platform grades later on).
On a high budget shoot with a dedicated
backup person, it is easier to rotate the
drives and proceed with backups at every
battery change (say 60 to 90 minutes).
“The backup job is easily learned by
almost anyone and should be possible without a DIT and for a camera assistant as
part of their regular duties. Obviously they
have to be a fastidious sort: this is your
camera negative.
“Carry on shooting on Drive B, then an
hour before finishing swap back to Drive A
so B can be backed-up and there won’t be too
much to do at the end of day from the third
backup. R3DDataManager takes longer to
backup, but it is will report any errors in
transfer and so is better practise than simply
drag-and-drop.”
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James Milner-Smyth: “Everyone thinks working with Red is a
struggle. An if it is you work natively, but there’s no need to...”
natively but there’s no need to — just as
there’s no expectation to deal with any
other format from film to HD in its raw
state. For drama the important thing is to
make life as easy for the editor as possible
so they can concentrate on making editorial decisions.
“We’ve had over a year of working with
Red cameras, the backup procedures and
the post workflow and we think it is now
pretty easy, whether you are working in
Avid or Final Cut. Obviously things vary a
bit if you are filming a drama series or a
commercial but the principles are pretty
much the same.”
On set backups: “The primary goal is
back-up of rushes. You will hear a lot of
different advice concerning this. Some people are very risk-averse to the point where
practicality is compromised in the face of
minor statistical risk. Generally, you shoot
onto the Red Raid drives or CF cards, then
backup at suitable intervals onto your own
standard computer drives.
“On an average shoot use two Red Raid
drives. Shoot the morning on Drive A, at
mid-day start backing it up to two (possiwww.tvbeurope.com M AY 2 0 0 9
Converting the Rushes: “This can be
done overnight as a batch process, ready
for editing the next day and is the route
undertaken on location at Cast Offs. We
favour an offline/online approach. Red is
capable of cinema quality footage, but
takes a lot of processing power and time
to get there. There is no need for this at
the editorial stage. HD is more than
enough for offlining.
“First turn the Red footage into files that
are easier to edit with, such as DVCPRO
HD 720 for Final Cut or Avid DNX36HD
for Avid or as half resolution debayer –
effectively taking 2k from the 4k raw into an
Apple Pro Res HD file. On a decent
system this is possible to do at
2.5 times realtime. For a drama, no correcting would be done at this time so it is the
equivalent of a ‘one-light’ telecine.
“For commercials, it may be worth having a quick tweak of the settings shot for
shot with a colourist to get a ‘best light’ to
allow for better client viewing in the offline.
The quality of the footage, while we call it
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29
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The story behind a giant Film Classification digitisation project
A four year file transfer
Since being designated the authority to classify
any video recording offered for commercial sale
or hire by the British Government in 1984, the
British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has
accumulated an archive of nearly 200,000 video
tapes. With broadcast standards moving from
video to file-based workflows, VHS is becoming
increasingly obsolete and with its diminishing
use, the board had to find a way to retain
the content of their extensive tape archive.
By David Stewart
The British Board of Film Classification
was originally set up in 1912 by the film
industry to bring national uniformity to
film classification across the UK. The growing popularity of VHS in the 1980s brought
about several cases referred to at the time as
‘Video Nasties’ where movies that weren’t
approved by the BBFC for cinema release
were instead released straight to tape. To
counteract this, the government designated
the BBFC to enforce the standards outlined
in the recently passed Video Recordings
Act, in which all recordings are classified for
approved commercial sale or rental.
It was made a statutory obligation for the
BBFC to retain copies of all the media that has
been classified, which inevitably lead to the
30
collection of hundreds of thousands of tapes.
With the decreased production of VHS players and the inevitable degradation of the tapes,
the BBFC had to find a way to retain its library
to remain in line with the regulations.
The board decided the most effective
solution would be to undergo a mass digitisation of the tape archive, which would
comparison and the process also had to allow
samples to be examined without disruption to
the rest of the workflow. Additionally, the
archive system had to have the capacity to
store the content of up to 200,000 tapes with
an average time length of 60 minutes.
The BBFC explored many options in
deciding which facility, technologies and
Pebble Beach Neptune automatically transfers
the files via FTP to an ingest (above) staging
server where content is stored until it has
passed quality control (below)
Tapes have to be ordered from deep archive and in some cases
retrieving the original copy could take up to a week, without any
guarantee that the tape received would be the one required
allow them indefinitely to keep copies of
the entire library. The project is currently
taking place at a purpose-built facility in
Berkshire, separate from the BBFC headquarters in Soho.
The BBFC set out clear objectives for the
project and carried out an extensive procurement process. The chosen system had to be
able to generate a minimum throughput of
400 hours and support the retrieval of 250 Hi
resolution files per week; all the content of
each tape had to be contained within a
single digitised file to allow for one to one
correlation between tape and file for easy
workflows to adopt. The board originally
looked at outsourcing the project to a third
party but this was rejected due to issues with
security and control of content. The material
handled by BBFC is highly valuable and
confidential and the board could not afford
the risk of leaked material. It was therefore
decided to set up a custom facility which
would be run by the BBFC itself.
Dave Harding, head of Technology
explains. “The BBFC’s operations did not
require an elaborate system but the Board
required it to be affordable, user-friendly,
reliable and flexible. An open-standards
platform was needed which could create
MPEG files to ease the move to different
storage systems if required in the future.
“An open and integrated architecture was
chosen to be integrated by Sun Microsystems,
with the storage solution of 400TB provided
as part of the overall final proposal,” says
Harding. “The facility was built from the
ground up, comprising a main production
room and a server room, built to a very high
standard by FutureTek to house the Sun and
other servers. All incorporated systems were
constructed separately and delivered to the
facility once the server room was ready. We
deliberately kept separate the archive management capabilities in order to simplify any
future integration of new video formats and
ingest methods and because the system is
scalable, additional storage or ingest capacity
can be added without significant modification to the existing system.
“As far as the workflow is concerned, the
overall system combines an ingest and archive
subsystem, comprising a range of integrated
technologies to complete the tasks we require:
12 JVC VHS video players are controlled by
Pebble Beach Systems software with each of
the three operator positions equipped with
Pebble Beach workstations, an audio monitor
and router panel. Each station presents the
operators with four channels of ingest control, selected using Pebble Beach GUI.
“Once the content has been ingested in to
the system, the composite feed is routed
through Snell & Wilcox DEC02 IQ cards for
processing to SDI before being passed
through six dual-channel Digital Rapids
StreamZ encoding systems, which also embed
the BBFC watermark,” says Harding. “We
needed robust and versatile encoders for this
enormous task and there were a number of
considerations governing our choice: the
encoders’ needed to be configured to the
exacting compression parameters for our
requirements; they had to be able to generate
MPEG-2 master and Windows Media browse
versions of each video tape simultaneously in
realtime; offer optional logo overlay capability
for the browse material and provide a comprehensive custom development API to
enable complete frame-accurate remote
automation of the encoding process.
“Pebble Beach Neptune automatically
transfers the files via FTP to an ingest staging server where content is stored until it has
passed quality control. Low resolution
copies of the files are reviewed at a supervisor position to check sound and tracking.
The quality control station is equipped with
a Pebble Beach workstation running
Razorfish, Pebble Beach’s cuts-editing application. The supervisor spot-checks the
encoded content using the viewer application and tags the content as passed, where it
is then released to the archive subsystem.“
The move to a file-based workflow not
only solves the issues relating to tape degradation and playback, but also streamlines
BBFC’s operations. The content classified
by the BBFC is frequently used internally to
compare versions of material to the original.
Tapes have to be ordered from deep
archive and in some cases retrieving the original copy could take up to a week, without any
guarantee that the tape received would be the
one required. This system was both inefficient
and expensive. The new system allows BBFC
to obtain a high-res file in an hour, saving the
board time and money. The BBFC also uses
this system to easily compliance check material that has been requested for re-release, to
ensure that all references and content within
the material are relevant to today’s standards.
As Dave Harding concludes, “Since
October, we have been operating two shifts
each day, with files being completed overnight
unsupervised. So far, we have successfully
digitised 10% of our library and we estimate
that it will take four years to complete the
project. Once completed, the next phase will
be to digitise our DVD library. Since starting
we have not experienced any significant system problems and we believe that the success
of this project is down to planning properly
with the right suppliers.”
TVBE May P8-31 IT
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Red workflow
action
‘offline’ will actually be good
enough for a lot of people for
final delivery, depending on
requirements, but not as good as
the best you can get out of Red.”
Offline Edit: “These converted
clips can be just dragged into Final
Cut to use, and have the same file
names and timecodes as the Red
files so matching back for the
‘online’ is easy. Avid requires one
further step, which is to import the
files from a timecode log generated
in the conversion stage. This is a
‘Fast import’ though (ie just a copy
into Avid’s own directory) so is
fairly quick. (Avid’s new application Metafuse make the import of
raw Red data into Avid files much
easier since it retains the timecode
along with the media, something
that required a painful workaround previously).”
Conform: “Once the offline is
complete, the online path depends
on the final deliverable. Either Avid
or FCP can generate an EDL which
is used to match back to the original
Red files, and these are processed
again, but this time with the better
(and slower) settings. This can take
up to 10 seconds per frame if you are
going to feature film output, but is
usually around 1 second per frame.
For HD TV delivery, around six
times realtime is usual.”
Online/Grade: “These files can be
rendered into a form which can be
graded and delivered by any regular
system: ProRes for Color, DNXHD
for Avid, DPX image sequences for
any Soho film grade system.
However, more and more grading
systems support the Red files directly, so a grading session can be done
from the EDL and the backup drives
(If you have a documentary you will
“Red is capable of cinema quality footage, but
takes a lot of processing power and time to get
there. There is no need for this at the editorial
stage” — James Milner-Smyth
probably consolidate these to only
have the clips you have used). In a
similar way to film, you will then
need to add graphics, text effects, etc,
to the graded material, so the
grade is usually passed back to an
online system for finishing according
to delivery.”
Delivery: “There is no need to go
to tape at any point in this chain other
than final delivery, which can be an
immense saving in costs and convenience for all concerned. However, for
long-term data storage we recommend archiving the Red files
(Selects) onto LTO3 data tape and if
short enough Blu-ray data disk.”
www.postfactory.co.uk/
red_tips.html
Ateme shows
a world first
Ateme has unveiled what it claims to
be the world’s first 10-bit 4:2:2
AVC/H.264 solution, offering native
video quality transmission with
increased capacity and lower transmission costs.
The Hi422P 10-bit codec solution was demonstrated in Las
Vegas using Ateme’s Kyrion
CM4101 encoder and DR8400
decoder pair.
Sylvain Riviere, executive vice
president marketing at Ateme, commented: “Whether used for fixed or
mobile contribution, Kyrion SD
and HD encoders offer broadcasters
greater bandwidth management at
uncompromised video quality. We
believe that H.264 technology based
encoder/decoder pairs are the next
generation choice.”
Pierre Larbier, chief technology
officer at Ateme, commented: “With
our 10-bit 4:2:2 solution, HD content can be compressed to just
30Mbps – compared to 50-60Mbps
with current MPEG-2 solutions –
offering two HD streams over DVBS2 link rather than just one, and with
improved quality. Ironically, the 10bit 4:2:2 solution when applied to
H.264 offers greater bandwidth efficiency than 8 bits. It is also a ‘one
technology fits all’ situation.”
www.ateme.com
31
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A string of 3D firsts
As with early HD production, it looks like arts rather than sports will lead
the way forward with 3D because the environment can be controlled. So
it proved with the recent ground-breaking ‘Keane in 3D’ shoot at Abbey
Road Studios. George Jarrett analyses the production challenge
Great ideas always gather
momentum, and so it proved
when pop band Keane decided to
do a live 3D web cast for their fans
to view with anaglyph glasses that
had been sent out with the single
Better Than This. Sky jumped at
the chance of securing some
popular content, and hey presto
there were several flavours of 3D
all happening at once as Sky
achieved its first ever live uplink
and downlink to its STB, and
also piped the uplink to a Vue
Cinemas theatre for test purposes.
Keane’s management had sent
the anaglyph glasses out from
March 16, and planned the gig for
April 2 at Abbey Road. The main
enabling players were the produc-
tion company Nineteen Fifteen
headed by founder Vicki
Betihavas, and the 3D production
and technology company Inition,
headed by MD Andy Millns.
Introducing herself as “the
insane person, who decided to
put all this together,” Betihavas
explained that Nineteen Fifteen
was set up to produce live events in
3D, and that these would primarily
involve music. “The music industry
has always preferred to work with
music specialists rather then with
generalists,” she said. “Inition
thought it might be cool to explore
the web casting, so the band
approached me to go and speak
with Inition to find out how it
would work. It’s been an interesting
time between challenging them and
where their experience is, and how
it fits with my multi-camera experience. What we had today was a live
HD multi-camera shoot with a
more complex set up because you
are talking about a very fundamental change,” she added.
“Mirror rigs are very much
heavier than single cameras. You
have weight and counter balancing
issues, which means big cranes.
There are also certain bits of
grip equipment that you cannot
work with, but at this point in our
loss a bit. There was no zooming
going on, it was all focus,” she said.
Another area of interest was
the use of mini rigs, but the full
spec issue did not bother the
producer. “Is it the quality of the
image you are looking for technically, or is it the compelling nature
of the image?” she challenged.
“Music has always been an early
embracer of technology; it embraced CDs and DVDs before
anyone else, and it certainly
embraced HD before sports went
live with it. What we have done
with 3D is in the same spirit, and
the music industry will embrace it.
“All arts will embrace 3D
because they lend themselves better than sports; not because sports
are not good in 3D but because
the fundamental way you cover a
sports match is dictated by physical locations and various other
aspects. In music you can control
“There are a lot of complexities with S3D. It is
very easy to strap a couple of cameras together
and get something resembling 3D, but to get an
easy-on-the-eye image, there are a lot of factors
involved” — Andy Millns, Inition
From the Beatles to … Keane. Sky came together with the band, production company Nineteen Fifteen
and 3D specialist Inition to deliver a music 3D first from Abbey Road Studios in April
development the mirror rigs seem
to be the best solution for what we
are looking for in the way of nice
close-up shots,” she continued.
In addition to the weight issues,
which caused Betihavas to say this
was “a TV shoot with film practices,” she had noticed the loss of
an F-stop of light. “There are all of
those issues, but it has been an interesting learning curve for everybody
on the production team. We used
Zeiss Digi Prime lenses and that
helped to counter-balance the light
the environment, which makes for
optimum capture,” she added.
“We have shot it as well as we
can, so it’s down to the manufacturers to make the distribution
match the acquisition. If you
archive well, you can always go
back to the material when the
quality of displays improve.”
Betihavas is very aware that the
UK needs to build a skills base if it
is to exploit the potential of stereoscopic 3D. “That’s one of the reasons I did not go for an American rig
solution, and that’s why I concentrated on working with local talent,”
she said. “I have nothing against the
American companies, but when you
have a lot of money, you don’t
always have to be challenged in quite
the same way as in the UK with its
modest budgets,” she added.
Last up, Betihavas talked about
the set. “We tried to keep it as natural as possible,” she said. “It was
actually more of a rehearsal set up.
It’s was all to do with the web cast
viewer feeling like they’ve seen something they wouldn’t have seen it they
went on tour with Keane. It was to
give the fans something different.”
A few little tweaks
Andy Millns explained his facilitating
role. “It’s not all about the rigs,” he
said. “A lot of it is about 3D expertise. We planned to do a full fivecamera OB, effectively. On the three
(P+S) mirror rigs we used Hitachi
HVD 32 cameras, which are split
block, and Zeiss Digi Primes,” he
added. “We used synchronous, twocamera follow focus units, and on the
crane rig we also had a motorised
interaxial between the cameras.”
The crew also used a Polecam
with two Toshiba mini cams and a
Steadicam unit with the same
cameras. Inition is the exclusive
UK distributor for the P+S rig.
32
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“We have modified it with a few
little tweaks. Mirror rigs are always
difficult because of their physical
size and weight,” said Millns. “I’d
like to see an ultra lightweight version for use on Steadicam.
“The motorisation was a new
thing for us, and it is vital, especially when you have got a rig on
the end of a crane. It is also good
enough to pull it during a shoot,
so it is very advanced,” he added.
For its film activities Inition
often uses 2k Silicon Imaging
minis, but they were no good for
Abbey Road. “In a space of that
size we were talking about interaxial distances of 15-30mm and you are
not really going to get a decent head
or lens at that diameter,” he said.
Asked what he had found to be
the difficult aspects of 3D production, Millns said: “Zooming
at the moment, certainly for live
transmission, is a very challenging
thing to attempt. This is partly to
do with the lenses, and partly due
to the follow focus systems we use,
but it’s mostly to do with working
live,” he added. “If it was post
produced, it’s fine. We can pull the
interaxial, zoom, and make minor
adjustments to the lens. Live you
have two options — you can
either do it with a motor, which is
what the 3ality guys do, or you
can do it digitally, which is what
we are working on.”
When the picture feeds come
from the rigs, the first thing to
handle is the upside down image
produced by the top camera.
“We have developed a product
called the StereoBrain processor
with a company called New Media,
and that takes care of flipping the
images,” said Millns. “It also does
the multiplexing, so we have a live
director’s monitor and also a preview feed, so we can check any of
the cameras on a 3D TV.
From the flip box, images go
into a switcher. Inition uses a
standard Telegenic unit, and it
was surprising to hear Millns say,
“We have found that standard kit,
whether it is in a truck or flight
pack gear, is capable of doing
everything we need in 3D.”
For its post production work,
Inition uses a Speed Grade system
from Iridas. “This is a 2k online system that allows us to plug into either
a beam splitter monitor, which gives
us HD in each eye, or a projection
HBB: Hype
or hybrid
A word about standards
In the broadcast world, standardisation is strong. Even in the
professional domain, it is quite
strong – although more de-facto
than in the delivery domain.
In the broadband world, there
is quite strong, again de-facto
standardisation.
However, IPTV is a domain
where there are many standards to
“The band wanted to shoot in the round. We were happy with that decision
because we had enough cameras to cover it,” said Inition’s Andy Millns
Another day at the office! When the picture feeds come from the rigs, the
first thing to handle is the upside down image produced by the top camera
system, which allows you to do all
the geometrical stuff you need to do
live, plus the stereoscopic colour
correction,” said Millns. “This is
very important because you get
slightly different colour tints in each
of the cameras (on mirror rigs).
Asked for his view of the set
used, Millns said, “3D does not
dictate everything. The band wanted to shoot in the round. We were
happy with that decision because
we had enough cameras to cover it.
“It does have an impact, how
the physical space is set up.
Ideally, it wants to be a more confined space so you are not wasting
any space in a gap,” he added.
Millns had accommodated Sky
very quickly. They worked afterwards
to create a post-produced version of
the gig, and Inition gave Sky a feed
via the Sensio encoding system it
used. What is his take on the picture
quality consumers will accept?
“The 3D displays have half HD
resolution per eye, so there’s not a lot
of point in going beyond HD per eye.
In cinemas there are bandwidth limitations and the servers won’t let them
go above 2k per eye,” he observed.
choose from and no winners. In
moving to the HBB world, it will
be important that some standards
appear: the product lifecycle of a
HBB device is longer than a PC,
the processing power and memory
capacity is much less than a PC; so
you need to harmonise.
The OpenIPTVForum is
probably the newest kid on the
block. Working to a tight time
schedule, it was originally dominated by CE vendors and has
made rapid progress in the
thorny IPTV domain. It is
currently working on a set of
standards that would cover TV
over open Internet and which
would include HBB.
Others involved in the area
include the DVB Project, which
has done excellent work on the
delivery systems for IPTV. It is
currently examining the delivery
of broadband TV and looking
into HBB. Indeed DVB has
recently published a set of measures for signalling applications
in HBB. ETSI TISPAN, the
DSL Forum, ATIS IIF are also
involved. Indeed if you’re a standardisation body and you think
you should be involved in television, chances are your doing
work in the IPTV domain. Such
is the complexity of IPTV that
one of the by-products is that
almost everyone is involved.
Right in the middle
People at the gig could wear
anaglyph glasses and watch the
gig on laptops, or opt for the
polarised option offered by Sky
(Sky HD Box to consumer flat
screen), which highlighted the
need for brighter lighting, and
better positioning (spacing) of the
musicians and singer.
There so were many 3D firsts
happening, it would have been
ungracious to carp. Sky executives
were there in great numbers, and
it was Gerry O’Sullivan, director
of strategic product development,
who explained the opportunism.
“We knew that Keane as a group
always wanted to be part of doing
things that are futuristic. And
their management had already set
up the web cast,” he said. “They
had seen we are involved in getting 3D going, so we kind of
rolled up and suggested we do
something together.
“What’s brilliant is that so
much happened with that content
on one night. We’ve only really
just started, but the buzz we are
getting suggests that S3D is going
to work for everything,” he added.
O’Sullivan would not toe the
company line that S3D will be
huge in time for the 2012 London
Olympics. He said, “If the sceptics
were at Abbey Road and saw the
Keane experience, they would be
the ones saying, ‘Yes. We can do
this in a year or two’.
“The production companies
have to come on board. The flat
panel manufacturers must flood
the market with 3D sets. If we can
get a good amount of content
together, consumers will lap it
up,” he added. “After HD and
then surround sound, this is just
another step. It makes people feel
they are there, right in the middle
of the action.”
Is a single world standard for
HBB possible? You must be joking! There are simply too many
interests involved for the dynamics to lead to a single standard.
But there’s a lot we could agree
on: A/V formats, delivery protocols and perhaps application
signalling. From a broadcasting
perspective, the EBU’s role is to
find common ground between
the different EBU members
spread across different geographical areas.
This article follows on from a
presentation given at the DVB
World Conference in Berlin in
March 2009
33
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34
What’s the future for free-to-air hybrid broadcast broadband services?
A few technical
considerations
HBB: Hype or hybrid
First a couple of definitions —
otherwise, we’ll get really confused. When referring to IPTV, I
refer to the managed TV services
offered by broadband providers
as part of a consumer telecommunications package. Typically,
these services have guarantees of
quality of service and are subscription based.
Broadband TV is a free-toair service offered by a service
provider, typically from a
web-portal, over a standard
broadband connection. Hybrid
Broadcast Broadband is the name
we give to a set of devices that has
a free-to-air digital TV connection (typically terrestrial) and an
Ethernet port for connecting to a
home network and from there to
the ‘internet’.
You mightn’t think it, but
IPTV relies heavily on technologies taken from the broadcast
world. In particular, many IPTV
systems use MPEG-2 Transport
Stream delivered over IP as the
Guest Opinion
By Peter MacAvock,
Programme Director,
EBU Technical
It dominated CES ’09. It dominated NAB ’09. The broadcasters
are really worried. Consumer
Electronics vendors are running
in different directions. Internet
blue-chips are in on the game. But
what is it?
Hybrid broadcast broadband
(HBB) is a cool new way of
delivering content to the big TV
screen. Or is it? Many CE vendors
are bringing out product in the
first half of 2009 with broadband
connections designed to link to
the viewer’s home network. It
sounds like a cool idea – marry
the high quality broadcast service
with an over-the-top service delivered by broadband and you have
a TV set which addresses those
who lay back watching TV and
the younger generation.
This is the area that I’d like to
cover: free-to-air hybrid broadcast
broadband services and devices.
HBB presents an interesting set of
challenges and a host of opportunities for all areas of the industry.
I accept that HBB sounds like
quite a limited domain, but it
draws upon digital television systems such as DVB, broadband TV
systems such as the popular catchup TV like BBC’s iPlayer and
IPTV technologies.
Why is it important?
Well it’s here for a start! Taken
purely from a broadcasting perspective HBB presents a fantastic
opportunity. It sounds obvious,
but it is well known that broadcasters typically offer great
broadcast services. They are also
well known for their streamed
media services offered over internet. Indeed, European broadcasters are typically amongst the most
popular websites in their respective territories. This suggests that
the broadcast community has a
lot to offer in both domains — so
When referring to IPTV, I refer to the
managed TV services offered by
broadband providers as part of a
consumer telecommunications package
services and devices that combine
the two worlds seem a logical next
step in enhancing the consumer’s
viewing experience.
But how can this experience
be enhanced? It’s far from clear;
indeed, I would contend that
broadcasters can’t identify what
will really work in the marketplace.
Internet on TV sets has never
worked, and there’s nothing to suggest that it will now. Catch-up TV
is a very exciting application that
has driven the popularity of
broadcasters’ online offerings, but
is the core application of HBB
going to be a simple combination
of this offering with a broadcast
service? I don’t necessarily have the
answers, but there’s no doubt that
I could think of a variety of applications that I’d like to try on the
consumer, but will they work? I
think a look at first principles
should drive the initial discussions
in order to ensure that we don’t
undermine the potential offered by
the technology before we start.
Shedding light on
complex issues
Broadcasters are of the view that
their offering is more than simply
the video and audio streams that
constitute a programme. A good
user interface like BBC iPlayer is an
essential element in the overall
offering – and broadcasters will tell
you that their ‘media experience’
includes some less tangible elements such as user interfaces, quality of service, etc. and these form an
essential part of the overall offer.
iPlayer is currently offered on
a number of different platforms –
mobile (iPhone, Nokia N96),
cable (Virgin Cable), broadband
(Apple, Microsoft, Linux), game
consoles (Wii). Indeed we hear
that BBC is obliged to author
iPlayer in 18 different audio and
video formats alone. In the HBB
domain, there are currently a
number of different platforms on
offer. Is iPlayer to be authored for
each of these also? At what point
does it become too expensive to
support all these platforms?
Ideally, broadcasters would have
to author once for each type of
device – rather than each manufacturer’s offering. This requires
harmonisation – and this has yet
to come to the HBB world.
On the positive side, there is
much commonality between the
positions of different broadcasters in different territories. This is
hardly surprising, but it is heartening and the EBU’s work centres
on trying to harmonise these
positions to help the introduction
of HBB devices and services.
delivery protocol. In the broadband TV world however, the two
main formats are Adobe Flash
and Windows Media. With most
media players now decoding MP4
file format, it would make sense to
ensure that the HBB devices
decoded MP4 file format rather
than relying on MPEG-2 TS. But
the standardisation world is moving from IPTV into HBB, and
there’s a concern that the seemingly
obvious choice for MP4 format
mightn’t happen for a while.

May 2009 - TVBEurope

Transcription

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