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AI in Media and Entertainment

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a term appearing everywhere these days. What is happening in media and entertainment (M&E) that makes the industry ripe for AI? In other words, why does the M&E industry need AI?In virtually every industry, AI is claiming a growing stake in the supply chain, creating both operational enhancements and business efficie...

Submitted by David Candler

Published 09 November 2018

Twenty Years of Transcription

In 1998 Dom Bourne dropped out of university and started a business providing transcriptions to production companies. The company operated from his childhood bedroom and Dom hoped it would keep him in beer money for a year or two before he decided what he really wanted to do with his life. Twenty years later and, this year, Take 1 celebrates two de...

Submitted by Dom Bourne

Published 18 July 2018

Class: Do we still need standards

On the 1st January 2018, I officially took on the post of SMPTE Standards Vice President. The role has responsibility for all of SMPTE’s standardisation activities and it fills me with equal measures of excitement and terror. A big thank you to Alan Lambshead who, after 4 years as Standards Vice President is handing over the post to me. I think it...

Submitted by Bruce Devlin - new

Published 12 February 2018

Supporting broadcast quality control

With the ever-increasing number of program channels and range of different program distribution formats, the process of ensuring program quality has become a complex one for contribution/capture, production, post production, server ingest and content distribution. Add to this the complexities of HDR and WCG gamut, it is essential to ensure that the...

Submitted by Alan Wheable

Published 02 November 2017

Leveraging licensed broadcast spectrum assets

There are several different approaches to transmitting live and file-based content from the field to the studio. Traditional microwave Electronic News Gathering (ENG) provides high bandwidth, high-quality transmission with low latency. Using the secure, dedicated BAS spectrum keeps control in a broadcasters hands. The past few years have seen a shi...

Submitted by John Payne

Published 02 November 2017

Modernizing the Cutting Edge

Over the last decade, streaming as a medium has seen tremendous growth. Services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Video are no longer just post-hoc distributors of broadcast television content, they have become content creators and are producing some of the most well received "television\" content of the past few years. For example, at the 2013 Prime...

Submitted by Myles Carter - new

Published 19 May 2017

Making OTT monitoring and compliance manageable and econo...

Consumers today regularly use their smartphones, tablets, and other connected devices to view Internet-delivered content. While their widespread embrace of over-the-top (OTT) services via an array of distribution outlets present today's video program owners and distributors with tremendous opportunity, it also presents new challenges in ensuring no...

Submitted by Gary Learner

Published 22 July 2016

Dialog-based search accelerates content discovery for any...

by Drew Lanham Issue 97 - January 2015 If you can\'t find it, then you can\'t reuse it. Those are a broadcaster\'s words to live by as media libraries grow at exponential rates. But the need to find and reuse media assets is not confined to large, traditional broadcasters. Organizations of all types and sizes are finding that the ability to uncover...

Submitted by Drew Lanham

Published 01 February 2015

Transforming Content and Caputure Distribution

by Russell Wise Issue 90 - June 2014 Within the broadcast industry, ongoing financial pressures have driven continued consolidation of operations, centralization of staff, and efforts to increase efficiency through smarter use of current and forward-looking media-focused technologies. At the same time, the rise of multiplatform content distribution...

Submitted by Russell Wise

Published 01 July 2014

Ask the experts: What is MAM?

by Rino Petricola Issue 85 - January 2014 Media asset management: what exactly is it?While the precise definition varies from person to person, a common description tends to emerge. Media asset management (MAM) is a solution that allows media content including audio, video, and graphics to be ingested, annotated, cataloged, managed, protected, sear...

Submitted by Rino Petricola

Published 01 February 2014

Sportsnet stays ahead of the game with Quantel

by Roger ThorntonIssue 81 - September 2013 Over the last 15 years, Sportsnet has risen to become one of Canadas leading sports media operations. The Sportsnet and Sportsnet One TV channels are complemented by Sportsnet Radio, Sportsnet Magazine and its premium international sports channel, Sportsnet World. In May 2013, parent company Rogers Media a...

Submitted by Roger Thornton

Published 01 October 2013

8 questions about QC and language-based tools for caption...

by KJ KandellIssue 79 - July 2013 What are Captions?Captions (also known as subtitles) are coded signals that are sent along with the video and are decoded at your television or cable box to provide the audio track of the programming as white or colored text over a background. Captions can be open or closed. Open captions are always visible while t...

Submitted by KJ Kandell

Published 01 August 2013

Addressing challenges in multiformat signal management an...

by Brian PeterssonIssue 79 - July 2013 One of the many demands broadcasters face today is establishing effective multiformat signal management and confidence monitoring, which have become critically required capabilities, and there are several reasons behind this. The first is the broadcast industrys progressive evolution slow at first, but acceler...

Submitted by Brian Petersson

Published 01 August 2013

Evolving the industry audio monitoring systems

With respect to monitoring, particularly for multiplatform content delivery, how can our facility straddle the divide between baseband and file-based signals?The media industry as a whole is moving toward multiplatform content delivery. This shift includes and affects not only traditional broadcasters and new media outlets, but the content creators...

Submitted by Don Bird

Published 01 June 2013

Building a live linear streaming channel to reach multipl...

The market for live and on-demand streaming video has exploded in recent years thanks in part to broadband connections and the proliferation of connected devices. A recent survey by The Diffusion Group showed that some 50 percent of online video viewers watch some form of streaming live video at least once a month, and 64 percent said comprehensive...

Submitted by Jennifer Baisch

Published 01 May 2013