Eye to eye on Broadcast content management 2009

Author: Dennis Lennie

Published 1st August 2009


Content asset management is one of the fastest developing areas of the entire broadcast business. Its advantages over old-style film and videotape libraries are so widely recognised that they hardly need repeating. NAB provided an opportunity to look at new advances from some of the key players.
AP introduced a new module for its ENPS 6.0 and 7.0. Called the Digital Publishing Engine, it allows multimedia content to be delivered to air, online and to mobile devices using a single simple workflow. Dynamic feedback the user's public web site allows producers to see which stories are getting the most attention. The ENPS web client has been enhanced to give remote users more powerful editing capabilities. ENPS Mobile empowers journalists to work via out-of-the-newsroom browsers as well as on PDAs and cell phones.
Blue Order has released new additions to its Media Archive system which enable application service providers to offer computer-based services to their customers over a network. ASPs can now host and manage the content of multiple clients in parallel while at the same time ensuring that each clients hosted content remains completely secure from other clients on the system.
Cinegy's Air Server now includes support for Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP) streams as live inputs and outputs, reducing the need for SDI cables and switchers. Multi-channel features have also been added to allow simultaneous play-out of several channels controlled by a single Cinegy Air Control application. New features have also been added to Cinegy Web, which allows remote access to Cinegy Workflow. They include a new web client based on Microsoft's Silverlight which facilitates audio-video playback, and review-and-approval capability via the web.
DAVID Systems has integrated its DigaSystem Content Management System with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, enabling web-based content sharing. It also provides features such as searching, retrieving and editing in both browse quality and and high resolution without being connected to the production system. The SharePoint integration enables journalists to view or edit material via the internet.
Dalet's ActiveLog addresses the needs of organisations faced with the challenge of recording and monitoring audio and video feeds. Incoming feeds can be a single or multiple audio channels, with or without video, at various formats and bit rates. As soon as a recording is triggered on the network, content is immediately available for browsing and logging by any Dalet ActiveLog workstation.
IBIS and Grass Valley are co-operating to produce a dynamic sports logging tool. IBIS Highlighter allows an operator to log points of interest on live multi-camera ISO-locked feeds from sporting, studio or other live events. In addition to marking the highlights of the event being viewed, the operator can capture validated metadata alongside the point of interest. Validated metadata can be used to trigger live-to-air graphics on playout of the highlights. Thus a winning horse in a race could be tagged instantly with the name of the horse, the jockey and the closing odds, all of which can be used to create the live graphics on playout. Highlighter will be integrated with the new Grass Valley K2 Summit platform which provides fast replay, fast cue times, dynamic port allocation, and high-quality slow motion.
OmniBus iTX for Mobile offers mobile TV operators baseband mixing, transitions and effects. These include video/audio transitions, logo insertions, voice-overs, two-dimensional DVE, insertion of advertising based on schedule time, cue tones, GPIs, SCTE 104 DPI or manual triggering, and support for a wide range of formats and bit-rates such as MPEG4, DV25/50, WM9, QuickTime? and MXF, with automatic up/down conversion.
Pebble Beach introduced new developments to its Neptune automation system. These include 'floating lists', global timers and multi time-zone support, as well as further expansion of Pebble Beach's Anchor integrated media management tool. 'Floating Lists' allows any channel to be played from any physical playlist, which is then automatically routed to the right output. The system is aware of the available hardware and can determine whether the broadcast equipment can support SD, HD or both. Global Timers provide timing information across all channels.
Pharos Mediator 4 content management platform mades its US exhibition debut at NAB. Mediator 4 delivers a new user interface with advanced search and browse at every desktop. It also improves workflow integration when using the optional Pharos Playtime playout or Pharos Pilot Studio and MCR control.
PlayBox Technology's eFoxBox, developed in conjunction with Fox International Channels Italy, enables the full operation and monitoring of distant broadcast playout using the internet as the link for all content delivery, control and monitoring. PlayBox enables full localisation of content branding including commercials, station IDs, multilingual audio, subtitles and graphics, as required. This allows low-cost worldwide local playout from any network operations location.
Marquis Broadcast's Medway media transfer and format conversion software provided the link between SGL's FlashNet archive system and Apple Final Cut Pro as well as Avid editing systems at NAB 2009. Medways new bi-directional Avid to FCP file transfer function offers the freedom to move edit jobs easily between FlashNet and a mix of Avid and Apple FCP editing systems as required.
Snell's Morpheus automation system now includes a scripting capability that allows users to automate repetitive tasks, dramatically improving productivity and consistency. Changes made via the user interface are captured and can then be mapped onto LCD panels. A new fast commercial break feature dynamically tracks all commercials within a schedule, allowing an operator to swap or move them.
Grass Valley has incorporated the content management capabilities of its MediaFrame software into a preconfigured low-resolution, browse and retrieval content management system called K2 BaseCamp Express. This allows real-time metadata-based identification, location and preview of incoming content. K2 BaseCamp Express comes with a low-resolution encoder, Dell 2950 workstation, and 5 terabytes of RAID-protected storage.
Video Technics introduced version 5.0 of its Apella Media Server product line and NewsFlow collaborative production systems. Apella servers now support a mixed database and back-to-back playout of mixed SD/HD standards, software codecs, as well as MOV, MXF and AVI file types. Apella HDS and HDX offer automatic standards conversion on playout which allows a mixed playlist to up-convert, down-convert, or cross-convert in real-time as media is played out of any channel.

The key message emerging from this summary is that content and asset management can be as widely-embracing as you care to make it. The available systems are becoming ever easier to use and decreasingly location-dependent.

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