The proliferation of social media and streaming platforms has completely changed how sports fans interact with the leagues they follow and the teams they support. Discussions of last night’s game are no longer confined to the office water cooler. Fan engagement has become big business in its own right, with dedicated supporters hungry to consume on and off-field content around the clock.

Direct-to-consumer video and over-the-top (OTT) media services are helping to unlock substantial revenue streams and open up new markets around the world. At the same time, TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts are making fans more accustomed to consuming bite-sized content. A recent survey by Deloitte claimed that the future of sports fandom could hinge on captivating Gen Z and Gen Alpha fans with personalized and interconnected digital experiences. These factors have made fast-paced content production integral to the success – and the bottom line – of sports organizations of all types.

For teams, and the leagues and federations they compete in, the creation of an efficient media workflow can mean the difference between a winning content strategy and the scoring of an own goal. Putting tenuous sports puns aside for one moment, teams, leagues, and federations have joined broadcasters in the need for robust, production-connected media asset management (MAM), distribution, and monetization systems that streamline and accelerate the game-to-fans content workflow.

With 2024’s sporting calendar packed to the brim, including the Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Paris (practically next door to Dalet HQ), how are sports organizations leveraging MAM solutions to accelerate their media workflows?

Ready, Set, Go: The End-to-End Sports Production Workflow

Before we start, let’s define the end-to-end sports production workflow. In essence, this covers everything from multistream ingest, transcoding, and content enrichment, all the way through to distribution, archive, and monetization.

For sports organizations that need to move fast, getting media into the production system at speed helps to accelerate all workflows.

While speed is paramount, quality is also key in delivering captivating experiences for fans. Solutions that enable the capture of rich content, that can then be transcoded, cut and distributed to multiple channels easily, are highly sought after.

The most savvy teams and organizations are focused on making processes faster and breaking down physical barriers for field teams. They are looking for remote and collaborative services to help ensure a flow of content from multiple sources and contributors without complexity. In addition, they need back-office processes that can automate useful metadata creation, packaging, and delivery to all digital outlets, at scale.

To help streamline processes, many sports organizations are looking to cloud-native MAM solutions with production capabilities, such as Dalet Flex. As we know, MAM and PAM solutions are converging to help deliver seamless media workflows. But which features specifically benefit sports firms and help to accelerate sports production workflows?

Live Elastic Ingest: Faster Content, From Kick-off

When it comes to live sports, capturing every moment from every angle is crucial. For a lot of organizations, matchday content is sourced from multiple sources and locations. This might include different camera crews, field journalists, partners, producers, and fans.

With so much live video to capture, it’s important to handle the volume and variety of sources, all while bringing in content with the rich metadata required to keep your library organized and efficient. This saves time and effort later down the line.

At Dalet, we developed Dalet InStream for this exact purpose. Dalet InStream seamlessly manages multicam, multifeed ingest to the cloud, as the action unfolds. This is a real time-saver, allowing editors to start working on live feeds while they’re still growing, producing edited clips in real time.

Dalet InStream’s flexibility and scalability is a major advantage. It can handle as many channels as required on a game day. With multiple feeds available — with or without graphics and various commentaries — every aspect of the live broadcast is captured and ready for the highlight reel. Channels can subsequently scale down to zero when there’s no action. This ensures no resources are wasted on off days.

One of London’s biggest soccer teams, Arsenal, uses Dalet Flex to offer their fans service well beyond the live match experience. Our custom solution delivers frictionless ingesting, processing, reviews and approvals, before content is seamlessly delivered to the club’s viewers via in-app highlights and social media.

“Video is critical to football. It’s all about the match, and specifically, it’s all about the highlights. They want to show their mates in the pub, see it on their mobile, watch it at home or on their desk at work.”

– John Dollin, Senior Product and Engineering Manager, Arsenal Football Club

Cloud and On-premises: Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

A lot of sports organizations require hybrid MAM solutions, particularly when niche technical equipment and high-res video formats combine with legacy systems. Take the case of Monumental Sports & Entertainment in Washington. The company owns and operates the NHL’s Washington Capitals, the Washington Wizards of the NBA and WNBA’s Washington Mystics team, amongst others.

The group needed a solution for its new full SMPTE 2110 broadcast facility which was a format that the legacy system was unable to ingest. Our on-premises ingest solution, Dalet Brio, was the answer. Dalet Brio is perfect for SDI and IP high-res formats like 4K and HDR, ensuring top-tier content capture.

Dalet InStream and Brio can be used in tandem to cover both cloud and on-premises ingest needs in a way that is both connected and centralized.

Chop and Change With Advanced Editing Capabilities

Editing could be described as the star playmaker in the sports production workflow, connecting content ingest, transcoding, and tagging with distribution and monetization.

For digital and social media professionals, editing functions that sit within production-connected MAM systems, such as Dalet Cut, are making it easy to engage fans with real-time highlights and key moments. Editorial teams are rapidly creating highlights from live streams or existing content inventory. These can be quickly published to all digital platforms at the touch of a button.

Production-connected systems also provide easy access to broadcast footage and archive clips for traditional broadcast and replay purposes. Tools, such as Dalet Xtend, seamlessly connect MAM systems with creative applications like Adobe Premiere Pro, making the creation of highlights and edited packages for live coverage far easier.

Editing tools are also having an impact away from back-office functions, affecting play closer to the pitch. With lightweight, web-based editors, coaching staff are whipping up highlight reels and tactical clips for halftime reviews and post-game analysis in record time. This is giving forward-thinking teams a competitive edge.

Transcoding At Speed For Pitch Perfect Distribution

Transcoding is the process of converting a video file from one format to another, making it compatible with various devices and platforms. This is an important part of the sports content production workflow, particularly when content needs to be adapted for broadcast, streaming, and social media clips simultaneously.

Standards conversions are very important in sports as well, particularly for frame rates and HDR. If a broadcast is shot in 60fps HDR, it may need to be converted to 30fps SDR for social media, or converted to 50fps for international distribution.

Once live content has been ingested, transcoding ensures it will look great on any device, from the biggest screens to the smallest.

Dalet Flex efficiently manages distribution to transcoders and encoders, ensuring high-quality content for fans, whether they’re watching on a smartphone, tablet, or TV. However, with Dalet InStream, producers can record both broadcast quality and proxy files at the same time, removing the need for time-consuming transcoding. This is a game changer for workflow acceleration.

Speed is important but so too is quality. Another of our proprietary solutions, Dalet AmberFin, has its own transcode engine that can be deployed on premises, in the cloud (or both) to deliver consistent high quality results. The scalability of the cloud allows users to ramp up their transcoding operation on game day and scale back down when it’s not in use.

Content Enrichment Through AI-Powered Metadata

Metadata creation is the unsung hero of efficient media management. More and more MAM solutions are using AI to supercharge the process. Sports organizations are capitalizing on these advancements.

In addition to typical content tagging for efficient retrieval later down the line, teams, and leagues are further enriching their sports content metadata through external match data providers and AI sources. With Dalet Flex, sports feeds from providers like Opta and Sports Radar can be integrated to enable a real-time data layer for key metrics like goals and possession stats. Our AI integrations take this further, enhancing content with even more metadata such as face, logo, and voice recognition. This allows users to find the exact moment they are looking for, with all elements in frame.

From here, all of this advanced metadata can be used to curate your edit bin, auto-generate highlights, and generate speech-to-text transcriptions, saving valuable time and money.

The End Goal: Distribution and Monetization

Getting content out to the right platforms is crucial to maximizing its value. Digital content has become a major revenue generator for the biggest teams in sports. Back to the world of soccer, the Financial Times reports that Spanish giants Real Madrid and Barcelona collectively garnered over 2.9 billion Instagram engagements in 2023, while Manchester City was able to grow its new WhatsApp channel to over 254 million members. Video content posted to this channel is now a major driver of traffic to the club’s £5/month streaming subscription service, City+.

Advanced production-connected MAM systems streamline distribution to archive and monetization platforms, ensuring content can start generating engagement and revenue quickly and efficiently. A great example of this workflow in real life is the partnership of Dalet and Veritone and the integration of Dalet Flex and Veritone’s AI-powered Digital Media Hub.

On the leagues and federations side of things, having sophisticated control over content rights is imperative. Organizations are utilizing MAM solutions to make sure users and partners can view or edit only the information that is relevant to them. Other use cases for this functionality includes presenting a subset of metadata to referees, coaching staff, production teams, league clubs, and OTT fans.

At Dalet, we help a leading international sports broadcaster deliver live football highlights within minutes to dozens of licensees worldwide. Using workflow automation within Dalet Flex, a complex process is simplified and streamlined to ensure service-level agreements are met, expanding the broadcaster’s revenue options.

Dalet and Veritone recently tackled the subject in the comprehensive webinar and Q&A, ‘Score Big: Unlocking the Power of Sports Media for Fan Engagement & Revenue Boosts’ which is available for you to take a shot at on-demand now!

Ready to Accelerate Your Sports Production Workflow?

With video content only becoming more powerful, more and more sports organizations are exploring the benefits of production-connected MAM solutions to their media production workflows. Here at Dalet, we’re leveraging Dalet Flex to increase agility, generate efficiency, and maximize content value for major sports-affiliated companies across the globe.

At the heart of Dalet Flex’s media workflow is its automated workflow engine. This powerful tool automates the entire production process, from ingest and editing to metadata enrichment and distribution. By streamlining these workflows, we ensure that sports content moves smoothly through the production pipeline, reducing time-to-air while enhancing overall efficiency.

If you think your team, league, federation or broadcaster could benefit from our production-connected MAM solutions for sports, get in touch with a Dalet representative today.

The post Sports Production: Accelerating Media Workflows for Teams, Leagues, Federations, and Broadcasters appeared first on Dalet.

Media-focused businesses large and small are already reaping serious rewards from the integration of video archive systems with the cloud. These benefits go beyond simple cost savings and increased efficiency.

However, moving to the cloud is no easy feat. Whether you’re implementing a hybrid approach or looking to shift to a fully cloud-native solution, it’s important to follow a robust methodology. Enlisting the help of a partner who knows your business inside out and can provide the services you require is integral.

In this post, we explore the benefits of migrating your MAM to the cloud and outline how we as a business successfully implement such systems. But before that, let’s define what a cloud based Media Asset Management actually is.

What is a Cloud based Media Asset Management?

At its core, a cloud based Media Asset Management solution uses cloud services to store and serve content from media libraries as part of the production and distribution process.

However, in reality, “cloud-based” can have multiple meanings. It could refer to fully hosted solutions where every aspect of MAM is managed by a cloud provider. It may also refer to hybrid models, where certain elements remain on-premises while others are moved to the cloud.

It’s important to recognize that cloud based media asset management does not mean cloud-native MAM. At Dalet, we define a true cloud Media Asset Management system as an enterprise solution built with cloud-native architecture, made up of microservices and modular capabilities.

Key features of a cloud-native MAM include:

• Unified Content Catalog: where disparate media libraries are brought together into easy-to-access cloud storage.
• Workflow Orchestration and Automation: where standard and custom workflows are leveraged alongside AI technology to transcode, approve, publish, and more.
• Application Ecosystem: where a suite of cloud-native tools is curated to address the specific technical and editorial needs of an individual media business.

Are you overwhelmed by your extensive media library ? Our customers experience unmatched scalability with our Cloud-native MAM, designed to grow with your business seamlessly. Request Your Personalised MAM Demo Today!

Can a Cloud based Media Asset Management Coexist with an On-premises Solution?

Regardless of your architecture, a cloud based Media Asset Management does not have to exclusively use cloud storage. It can integrate with multiple cloud providers and on-premise storage to operate in a hybrid model.

Traditionally, the moving of a MAM to the cloud may have been contextualized as a classic “lift and shift.” In other words, the moving of on-premises, physical server-based storage to a virtual cloud-based archive.

While lift and shift options bring the accessibility of the cloud and remove on-premise infrastructure needs, they do not take full advantage of the cloud in the same way cloud-native architecture does.

What Services and Workflows Does a Cloud-Native MAM Impact?

While many lightweight web-based solutions exist, they lack the power of a cloud-native MAM capable of improving access, collaboration, and efficiency on an industrial scale, based on user needs.

While all features might not all be used across every implementation, an enterprise cloud-native MAM system will be comprised of several key technical components:

1. Cloud Storage: This is the backbone of a cloud-native MAM, providing scalable, secure, and cost-effective storage solutions for media assets across multiple storage tiers.
2. Intelligent Ingest – Ingest any media with relevant and enhanced technical and editorial metadata at scale regardless of where the media originates from, for example, watch folders, camera cards, live feeds (SDI, SMPTE IP, compressed IP), or file uploads.
3. Metadata Management: Essential for organizing, searching, and managing video files effectively. Cloud facilitates metadata capabilities through advanced tagging and indexing.
4. Workflow Engine & Automation – In-house ability to quickly create workflows that efficiently distribute content at every stage of the media supply chain ensuring secure, reliable access to assets 
5. Transcoding and Encoding Services: Cloud services can automatically convert media files into various formats and resolutions, making them suitable for different distribution channels and devices.
6. Integration APIs – These allow for seamless integration with other tools and systems such as NLEs, file transfer systems, AQCs, playout, monetization, analytics platforms, and more.

What are the Benefits of Implementing a Cloud-Native MAM System?

Following a successful migration, the benefits of implementing a cloud-native MAM system are numerous:

• Scalability: The cloud allows you to easily dynamically scale your storage and processing needs up or down without significant upfront investment.
• Accessibility: Users can access media assets from anywhere, at any time. Previously, clunky VPNs and high-speed internet connections may have been required to access media assets. With cloud a standard wi-fi connection is all that’s needed.
• Improved Workflows: Automation makes it easy to orchestrate your media supply chain and manage your storage costs. You can control where files are and when they are accessible. Metadata can also be used to determine when files are moved to and from cold storage, based on the specific needs of your operation.
• Cost Efficiency: Cloud reduces the total cost of ownership by removing the need for physical infrastructure and the associated maintenance costs, while improving your content security.
• Security: Cloud-native MAM systems leverage cloud provider security measures, including data encryption and secure multi-factor access controls.
• Content Monetization: Return on investment extends beyond financial savings. Cloud-native systems allow you to generate new revenue streams by licensing selected inventory to clients, partners and affiliates through integrations with modern digital storefronts.
• Innovation: Cloud-native architecture allows you to quickly adopt new features and technologies as they become available in the cloud ecosystem.
• Reliability: Cloud systems can take advantage of providers’ immense scale. No matter where you are in the world, you’ll always be near to a server location for quick, reliable access to archives. Cloud also removes barriers to high availability – AWS operates a “five nines” principle of 99.999% year-round availability and uptime.
• Energy Savings: Cloud data centers are up to 5x more energy-efficient than traditional data centers, reducing energy costs for companies that migrate to the cloud.

How Long Does It Take to See Benefits from Cloud-Native MAM?

The timeline to realize these benefits can vary. Typically, organizations begin to see improvements in operational efficiency and cost savings within the first few months after implementation. However, the full scope of benefits, especially those related to strategic advantages like improved content distribution and market responsiveness, may take longer to materialize.

But an uptick in performance can come quickly. When our customer France Télévisions was faced with a nationwide lockdown in March 2020, staff had no direct access to the company’s systems. We were able to rapidly implement remote cloud workflow solutions and restore operational strength in just 4 weeks.

Preparing to Move to The Cloud

Whether you’ve decided to move all or part of your MAM system to the cloud, there are several things to consider. Moving to the cloud is a big task — one that nobody wants to have to do twice — so it’s important to make the right choices.

Before any implementation, it’s important that your MAM provider has a holistic understanding of your business. This involves understanding your business’ current MAM setup and workflows, exploring how you operate with other vendors, and determining your needs and ambitions moving forward.

Moving to the cloud isn’t about having the latest and greatest, it’s about bringing real value to your operation and enabling you to achieve sustainable growth.

While all media-focused businesses are likely to benefit from the features we’ve already listed, your organization will have specific pain points that a cloud MAM can ease. It’s important to state clear aims and objectives.

If you’re a broadcaster, the aim may be to drastically improve the speed and efficiency of content delivery to meet tight deadlines. In the film industry, the focus might be on collaboration among geographically dispersed post-production teams. Setting the precise specifications for the cloud features you want to exploit is key.

Over the past 33 years, we’ve built significant experience in managing large-scale, multi-million-dollar projects. Over this time, we’ve created a set of standardized tools and methodologies to ensure the successful delivery of our projects.

Key Milestones for Successful Cloud-Native MAM Implementation

Though this varies depending on the nature of the project, our phased implementation approach typically includes:

• Project Initialization & Scope: working with you to define the scope of the project by setting high-level goals and objectives.
• Business Analysis Requirements: performing a study to determine the functional requirements of the desired system. This study includes an in-depth analysis of workflow, infrastructure, interoperability with third-party systems, and data migration from legacy systems.
• Project Planning & Design: writing a plan with detailed descriptions of key milestones throughout the project to ensure delivery is on time and within budget.
• Risk Management: anticipating risks and developing workarounds as needed.
  Integration & Customization Engineering: providing customization for integration with third-party applications, databases, legacy systems, or equipment – in other words, connecting to the tools your business already uses.
• Implementation & Configuration: working with you and third parties to implement and configure the system in accordance with the requirements.
• Acceptance Testing: planning and conducting acceptance test scenarios to verify that the implemented solution meets the desired system requirements.
• Training and Coaching: providing custom training sessions to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Roll out: working with your organization to develop a proper support strategy, organize post-project evolution, and evaluate any future needs.

Initialization in Practice

So, what does this actually look like in practice?

Following kick-off, our Professional Services team will engage with relevant stakeholders in your business on an agile basis, working across a series of project sprints that typically last for 3 weeks at a time.

This outlines a simplified migration from on-premises to the cloud. In reality, businesses often deploy a hybrid approach or gradually move to the cloud in iterations over time.

Dalet’s distributed architecture means files can reside anywhere at any time, with the benefits of cloud felt even when some files remain in on-premises storage.

The Key to a Successful Setup Process

Whether implementing a hybrid or full cloud-native solution, some areas of the initialization are particularly important to get right.

Defining accurate technical specifications, including infrastructure, security, and storage requirements, is crucial. A consultant or cloud services operations specialist will take extra care in pulling together requirements. This person then becomes ultimately responsible for successful deployment on the appropriate cloud account.

We support integration with many providers, including AWS, Azure, Google, Alibaba, OVH and more. This is important to us, not only in terms of increasing consumer choice but also from a data recovery standpoint. Some customers house their entire media library with one provider. Dalet Flex mirrors this data with another provider as well, for extra security.

Security measures are integral. We provide recommendations for ports, services, anti-virus measures, and more. This may involve discussions about VPNs and secure data transfers, especially between cloud and on-premise locations, ensuring a secure environment.

When it comes to migration, specifications cover the movement of data from existing systems, possibly involving third-party solutions. The approach will vary depending on the media business in question. A move to the cloud might require the use of technologies like AWS Snowball for data transfer. It’s also common to deal with specific requests for data context preservation. This stage is one of the most complex and crucial, as it involves ensuring that existing data is accurately and efficiently migrated to the new system, considering all technical and functional requirements.

In the Long Term: How MAM Is Set to Evolve

Looking ahead, cloud-native MAM is set to become even more integral to media production and distribution workflows. Advances in AI and machine learning will further enhance metadata management and content personalization. Cloud providers will continue to improve security, compliance, and global reach, making cloud-native MAM an even more attractive option for media-focused businesses.

The evolution of cloud-native MAM is tied to the broader trends in cloud technology and media consumption habits such as a prevalence of mobile video and streaming. As the media landscape evolves, cloud-native MAM systems will become more sophisticated, enabling media companies to not only manage their assets more effectively but also to innovate and adapt to the change.

In order to make the most of these advancements, many businesses will need to update their approach towards collaboration. At Dalet, we believe that organizations should reimagine and reorganize how they work to maximize impact on operations and productivity. Our co-founder Stephane Guez provides more context in his post Media Trends of 2024: Big Events and Big Changes.

Ready to Realize the Benefits of The Cloud?

Implementing a cloud-native MAM successfully requires careful planning, a clear understanding of your organization’s needs, and a strategic approach to integration. The benefits of making the transition are clear, offering significant advantages in terms of cost, efficiency, and scalability, but it’s difficult to achieve all of this without the right partner.

If you’re keen to hear more information about Dalet’s cloud-native MAM services or are looking for help with your business own migration to the cloud, get in touch with a Dalet representative today.

The post Implementing Cloud Based Media Asset Management Successfully appeared first on Dalet.

In a way, Burning Man’s virtual reality counterpart represents the promise of the metaverse—a unique opportunity for redefining content production and distribution.

Has VR’s Moment Arrived at Last?

Virtual Reality (VR) is far more accessible than it has ever been, thanks largely to Meta’s innovative, standalone Oculus Quest line of headsets. A recent Statista report shows that users spent 71% more time using VR in 2020 alone due to the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdowns. These numbers have only increased throughout 2021 as more and more curious and eager-to-get-away people enter the metaverse, even though the metaverse concept is nothing new. In fact, it turns thirty this year. Neal Stephenson coined the term in his 1992 novel Snowcrash, but the concept goes back even further to William Gibson’s critically acclaimed 1984 cyberpunk novel Neuromancer. The title also gave life to the terms “cyberspace” and “the Matrix.”

Get a Second Life: From Early Steps to Christmas Craze

Just 5 years ago if you wanted to get into VR, you needed an expensive gaming PC, a high-end graphics card, and an equally costly headset. The pre-VR attempts of virtual environments such as the popular escapist haven, Second Life, promised a multiverse in which users could own virtual property , attend concerts, go to art shows, and more, provided your hardware had the power and punch to deliver. Many times, it didn’t.

The demands needed for a positive VR experience were upheaved in 2018 when Meta (then Facebook) released the Oculus Quest, catalyzing a paradigm shift. For the first time, all you had to do to enter the metaverse was power up a headset, secure it on your head, and boom, you were jacked into the ‘verse like one of Neuromancer’s console cowboys. The following year, Meta released the Quest 2 with a lower price tag and superior onboard tech. According to the Verge, Meta is reported to have sold 10 million Oculus Quest headsets in 2021 alone, and there’s plenty for people to see and do in the metaverse.

You Want Content? Oh, I Got Your Content…

Virtual Reality content and experiences are becoming increasingly more available and range from animation, to films, and to even the channels themselves that are used for distribution. Felix and Paul Studios, EMMY-award winning immersive content creators are at the cutting edge. The small studio has collaborated with the likes of NASA, SpaceX, President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama to create all original 360-degree video series that include “The Space Explorers” and “Traveling While Black.”

Streaming giant Netflix released their original VR app in 2015, and is still available for all modern headsets. Netflix stands apart from YouTube by placing you in a wilderness lodge with a big screen TV where you can dim the virtual lights and enjoy all of your favorite Netflix series and movies while simultaneously feeling like you are getting away from your everyday reality. Similar to Netflix, Amazon Prime VR provides access to award-winning Amazon Originals, popular movies, hit TV shows, channel subscriptions, and a modest and growing library of immersive virtual reality content, all optimized for the virtual home theater.

The YouTube VR app launched in 2016 and has continued to capitalize on its ever-expanding library of 180 and 360 degree videos, perfectly suited for headset viewing. Recently, the company has turned their eyes toward the content creators, providing a variety of resources as a means of encouraging creators to explore the VR space. Users can find workshops, labs, and downloadable templates on YouTube VR.

New Opportunities for Non-Media Companies to Shine

Entertainment isn’t the only industry experimenting with content distribution in metaverse channels. Take for example, Hyundai, who launched a virtual showroom in VR featuring popular and new car models on display where you can even change the colors of the cars in the showroom and watch slick, promotional videos; and Audi who, with the help of Dalet Flex, created a Le Mans VR Experience, putting its viewers in the Pit Lane as part of the crew. It’s not inconceivable that automotive manufacturers may someday evolve these experiences to suit prospective car buyers, providing hands-on previews of vehicles without the buyers having to leave their sofa. Then comes along the fast paced fitness app, Supernatural, mentioned previously, places your trainer (via green-screen recorded 3D video) right into your workout environment.

With so much new content being created and distributed—3D video trainers, docuseries, and virtual show rooms—creators will need ways to efficiently deliver to their consumers to stay relevant. Managing and monetizing archives of valuable content will become essential to not be left behind the curve. Dalet provides in Dalet Flex a scalable platform offering the tools for producing, packaging, and distributing content with both relevant metadata and reliable asset management. Think of it as an open and extensible “Media Factory.” The workflows created before and after the launching of these digital worlds provide the means for even non-media companies to become pro-level content creators!

The Future’s So Bright, I’ve Gotta Wear (VR/XR) Shades

The future of the metaverse is bright, indeed. It’s not just a buzz word and the fact that the term itself nearly defies description speaks of its potential for distributing content in incredible ways. The metaverse can, should, and likely will forever change the way content is distributed and with it the very creative process itself. Whole worlds have already been forged from the pixel up. Worlds await where you can experience films, fitness, live music, art, history, and technology with friends and strangers alike. These are worlds where the lines between reality and the simulation blur.

“The Medium is the Message” is a quote from Canadian communication theorist Marshall McLuhany that became the unofficial slogan of the Internet in its formative years. And much the same can be said for the metaverse — the channel is the content. We at Dalet are firm believers in the power of innovation and intend to support content creators, owners, and distributors in this New Frontier.

The post The Metaverse Era: A New Reality for Content Production and Distribution appeared first on Dalet.

In the last several years, esports has evolved from a niche interest, popular largely among teenagers, into a market spanning the entire globe with big audiences and even bigger productions. 26.6 million monthly viewers tuned into esports events in 2021, up 11.4% from 2020, according Insider Intelligence. And as esports continues to grow, global investors, brands, and media outlets are all paying attention. Feeding this interest in esports are the numerous stories generated not only by the games themselves and the quests and rich mythos that come with them, but also in the individual players themselves. Metadata plays more than just a supporting role in esports and broadcasting at large. Today, modern broadcasting and content streaming illustrate that metadata is both powerful and invaluable. Metadata is like gold! Nowhere is this power better exemplified than in esports where live broadcasts utilize metadata-driven workflows along with hardware and software integrations to create unforgettable productions. And with the right tools, terabytes’ worth of quality content can be automatically tagged, distributed, archived, and indexed for use by global teams editing and creating content in platforms like Adobe Premiere Pro®.

Better Production Tools Equals More Content

Digital production tools have been evolving in spectacular ways and, because esports already exists in the digital realm, there are no obstacles to entry. For example, no additional algorithms are required to convert on-screen/on-camera player actions into data. AI-powered scene capture and instant analysis of every action an athlete performs in esports is collected as metadata. This allows for dynamic visualizations of player stats, instantly generated and tagged highlight clips, and efficient remote production workflows. As production tools become more adept at utilizing metadata and workflows increase in sophistication, more assets will be generated. Cloud-based platforms like Dalet Flex use AI technology (such as Dalet Media Cortex) to truly harness metadata to create fully-indexed content libraries. These asset libraries can then be utilized by editing and production teams working remotely, from anywhere in the world.

Esports is All About Big Moments

The production value in a big esports event rivals that of American Football’s Superbowl, the FIFA World Cup, or even the ceremonies of the Olympics. These events often span multiple days and are a goldmine of assets and metadata.

The 2017 DOTA 2 tournament attracted a staggering 25 million viewers and 20,000 fans on site across four days. Electronic Sports League deployed their proprietary Echo platform—developed to leverage metadata in an effort to increase audience interaction and engagement—for this event. Evidence shows that metadata generated in real time when broadcasting the 2017 DOTA2 tournament had a profound impact on audience engagement and interaction. Graphics detailing player-performance stats effectively created a narrative around the competition experience and individual players, eliciting audience responses of surprise and anticipation through the four-day competition.

Two years later, the 2019 League of Legends World Championship, produced by Riot Games, showed just how far and hard the production envelope can be pushed and how innovation can pulverize the status quo. Riot pulled off a two-location remote production with the world feed being produced in LA, the English Language show produced at Riot’s European HQ in Berlin. Commentators across the globe had instant access to live stats and memorable gameplay moments thanks again to that humble metadata. Using the at the time new JPEG XS compression format, Riot games executed the first trans-Atlantic remote production in esports history. Astoundingly, the finals were produced and sent to 40 distribution partners around the world with just one OB truck onsite in Paris. It’s staggering to consider the volume of content and metadata that was generated just from this single event.

Literally thousands of hours of compelling video come out of these events with a mountain of metadata to match. And like with professional sports, the stories in esports don’t end when the confetti settles and viewers logoff. In fact, to be able to retell these stories in inventive ways is critical in maintaining interest in a digital world where attention spans can be fleeting and memories just as short.

Assets Worth Managing

With the array of software and user roles required to pull off a successful esports event, content may end up being stored on different servers and in different locations. Assets may have multiple permissions and there could be any number of file formats floating around as well. According to an article on FeedMagazine.TV, ad hoc in-house solutions can become fragmented. If editors, for example, are to execute tasks efficiently and across teams, assets need to be unified and available from a single source. This is where Dalet Flex can reduce these fragmentations, centralizing all this fresh esports content into a single, unified view. Integration with AI indexing tools, including Dalet’s own Media Cortex, help in the categorizing, indexing, and archiving of media. This not only creates meaningful interpretations of the pre-existing metadata, but also builds a layer of metadata that makes indexing and subsequent searches more intuitive and efficient.

Metadata excels in the way it enables us to consolidate assets, categorize information, and create robust content libraries. The Council on Library and Information Resources states “without metadata, a thousand-hour digital video archive is reduced to a terabyte or greater jumble of bits; with metadata, those thousand hours can become a valuable information resource.” Imagine that now, not only can a live clip of a player slaying a dragon for the big esports tournament win be displayed as an instant highlight, but video from multiple angles provided by in-game observer cameras can be tagged, saved, and indexed in an asset library to be later edited and sent out on social media or other distribution channels. What’s so important here is that the manpower requirements are greatly reduced, and more time can be using these memorable moments for post-event fan-engagement, branding, and promotion.

The scope of work required by esports can on be accomplished in the cloud. Cloud-based infrastructures and services are becoming not just more practical, but necessary for content access, storage and asset management as more and more employees across the globe are working remotely. The flexibility of multi-cloud platforms allows for optimal levels of security, performance and reliability, as well as business continuity and system redundancy. Given volume of content and metadata generated from an esports event, a platform with these characteristics is needed to not only sustain but to also scale operations as esports popularity continues to surge and productions get bigger and more complex.

Esports Will Only Continue to Grow

The growing global popularity of esports has brought about some remarkable innovation, in particular, the use of metadata to create highlights, stats, and enhance storytelling as well as pump out a mountain of content. AI-powered, cloud-based content management and supply chain platforms like Dalet Flex will undoubtedly see broader adoption in esports as this already large volume of esports assets increase. Associated access requirements, along with a need for seamless project hand-offs across time zones, require metadata-driven solutions in the cloud. Esports is forecast to gain more traction in years to come, and with that the demand for tools that can manage this content in a scalable and flexible fashion will increase as a result.

Curious as to how Dalet can help you in your esports video asset management and storytelling goals for 2022. No better time to level up than now.

The post Esports and Metadata: Unlimited Storytelling Possibilities appeared first on Dalet.

With the growing demand for multimedia content, changes are needed in the way video is produced, managed and distributed. Video Asset Management makes media production and distribution more efficient and more adaptable to meet the evolving demands of the global marketplace. Here’s how to get started!

Chapter 1: Analyzing the Industry
Chapter 2: Organizing Content & Streamlining Workflows
Chapter 3: Importance of Metadata
Chapter 4: Creating a Collaborative Operations
Chapter 5: Tools to help you master Video Asset Management

Analyzing the Industry

It is a well-known axiom in the media industry that content is king; and to those offering the best content will retain the keys to the castle. Those creating the best content will continuously and consistently attract audiences, and therefore have the best chance at long-term success. Simply look at HBO who began this trend with The Sopranos and continued to do so with such offerings as Game of Thrones and Westworld. With the video landscape now extending across digital platforms raging from wide screen LCD TVs to handheld devices, the need for content has become even more imperative as it is everywhere — on every screen, around the world, at every minute of the day.

If there is any question if new, original content is worth the investment, consider that annually, Netflix now spends $8 billion on original and acquired content, HBO spends $2 billion, and Facebook and Apple both spend around $1 billion. This demand for original content is hardly reserved for the entertainment industry. Take Red Bull as an example: an energy drink company that has achieved incredible success with their own media productions, elevating the brand well beyond “energy drink production” to a symbol of living life on the edge. The same could be said for Patagonia, a store known for clothing but turning their success as a business into a platform for environmental action and advocacy through film. Then there is NASA, their content archive a treasure trove of flight and space exploration. Truly, the media amassed over seventy years of science is stellar, and the public never tire of consuming the content coming from Mission Control.

While billions are being spent on creating original content, most content providers don’t have multi-billion-dollar budgets to produce or acquire a level of programming needed to attract and keep audiences. Productions need to be more strategic, and creators must manage their content in order to make the most of their video investments and stay in the game. In this dynamic content environment, Video Asset Management is vital to survival.

Video Asset Management: Organizing Content & Streamlining Workflows

Exactly what is VAM, or Video Asset Management? When you create multimedia content of any kind, you need assets — video files, audio files, support graphics, and other elements that support your production. In order to keep everything organized, you need Video Asset Management, a comprehensive strategy providing storage, organization, distribution and archiving. Reliable Video Asset Management goes even further, offering advanced metadata and workflow management for all your multimedia projects.

Intelligent workflows can incorporate automated business logic and user-defined rules to determine how an asset is treated during production. Media Logistics platforms can automatically detect and validate files during this process and then orchestrate their formatting and delivery. An example of this would be if a syndication partner requests all the content a studio can provide, but only if it meets certain technical criteria and contains all mandatory metadata. If your Video Asset management system is manual, sorting out content meeting these criteria would be incredibly time-consuming.

For example, the Dalet Flex platform does this to avoid any potential issues and possible bottlenecks. Once a distributor’s packaging and managing profile is built, the syndication of assets including multiple audio tracks, subtitles, or images, and their corresponding data to multiple places is streamlined in a workflow that truly helps you create content — whether it is your own content or content for syndication — on demand and optimized for a variety of platforms. These workflows would be tedious and cumbersome unless metadata and other details determined by the user can be assigned during the media’s import into projects. Reliable Video Asset Management can automatically convert your content into required formats, assign assets with relevant metadata for both editing or archiving, or repackage them with the original elements. The best format for each distributor’s channel can be automatically generated, at the highest quality, lowest cost, and fastest delivery time.

Ultimately, this kind of strategy helps ensure tasks are completed successfully and video assets and their metadata end up where (and how) they need to be as quickly as possible. But what is it about metadata that makes it so important? When investing in Video Asset Management, why is automation of metadata so essential?

Metadata? Video Asset Management’s Ultimate Superpower!

You hear it mentioned often when it comes to building a library of media, creating an optimized Video Asset Management system, or when working remotely with a production team. What exactly is metadata, and why is it so important to the success of your VAM?

When putting together workflows best suited for you and your production team, it is essential to come up with a system and a strategy that takes the effort of organizing and cataloging your footage easily for everyone involved. This is where a Video Asset Management platform earns its place in your media production process. A VAM platform should offer advanced metadata capabilities in an easy-to-use interface. Reliable VAM platforms make integration into your workflows and sharing search terms between various media assets effortless.

Metadata is specific information embedded directly into a media asset or can be associated with assets as separate data files. This specific information pertains directly to the content of the media asset, ranging from specific keywords associated with the content, timestamps, closed captioning, audio languages, and other aspects of your project. Its creation, assignment, and management had once been regarded as one of those tasks that used to be manually driven, akin to managing budget spreadsheets, or re-entering metadata manually when sharing media between producers, or updating scripts in pre-production and pushing them into production systems. Video Asset Management platforms, like Dalet Flex, can now automate this, saving time, cost, and potential for human error.

Metadata is entered once and then carried across each asset, platform to platform. Depending on the ecosystem you can create, the metadata should carry across a variety of systems, whether the applications you have implemented are provided by the same vendor or not. Dalet Flex includes partner integrations where metadata can be shared, such as multimedia editing tools and with A.I.-driven cognitive service applications that tags various media through such details as facial recognition, object tagging, and audio transcription. Video Asset Management systems harness metadata to perform focused asset searches within applications and archives, and transform them into productive, targeted and monetizable content for engaged consumer audiences.

A good case study highlighting the importance of metadata in a reliable Video Asset Management strategy is the National Rugby League of Australia (NRL). The organization has been continuing its investment into content creation and media production, and their success is seen by how passionately their fans are demanding more of their content. As a result, they have established themselves as a leading sports media and digital technology business. The NRL now delivers engaging content to fans much faster across various platforms (Internet, mobile apps, and social media) while continuing to manage a complex network of asset sources including broadcasters, other rugby clubs, production partners, each with different rules and workflows. The NRL was looking for technology to manage workflows better and to automate production tasks so that its team could focus on creating and curating high-earning content. The NRL also wanted to eliminate duplication around metadata and user permissions, allowing each team member access, specifically and exclusively, to the information to which they are entitled.

NRL found their solution by building a reliable, efficient video asset management platform implementing media logistics that addresses all these challenges and automate asset ingest and distribution. The implementation of a VAM frees up the production team to work on creative and high-value tasks.

When content is published whether it is to a Video-On-Demand portal, a social media platform, or some other delivery service, specific metadata fields, ranging from celebrity names to special events to more general keywords or technical information associated with the content, are also leveraged. Along with aiding in search terms and “Other media you would be interested in…” suggestions, monetization opportunities are added in this automated chain by looking at metadata and creating tailored pre-roll ads based on metadata associated with the media. Dalet Flex sends media through an automated workflow from import through to distribution. Harnessing third-party services compatible with Dalet Flex, the media logistics platform analyzes a variety of metadata elements associated with cataloged assets in order to optimize the search process as well as monetize the media itself. All this information is then automatically logged as timecode-based metadata as part of the asset within the media logistics platform for future consumption.

Metadata, its management and implementation, is essential in building a successful Video Asset Management solution for you, your team, and the wider organization.

So Happy Together: Creating a Collaborative Operation!

When implementing your Video Asset Management platform, collaboration on projects immediately improves (as well as your productivity) based on how easy internal teams, external partners, and systems seamlessly integrate—whether separated by an office, a country, or — in the case of 2020 — a pandemic.

Finishing a single piece of content can require a vast number of elements and stages being tracked and managed by a variety of team members. As seen during the many COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020, these workflows can be automated, starting at the earliest stages of content development, commissioning, and pre-production. During physical production and continuing through to post-production, reviews and approval processes managed by Dalet Flex can help in avoiding communication breakdowns, thereby helping to complete projects faster—even if they require input from various teams. Crew members can shift to higher-value activities such as developing new content, leaving software-defined tools to handle the rest. Companies can take advantage of this Video Asset Management strategy to complete more projects, scale their existing video investments, and adapt far more quickly to the inevitable changes to come in production processes and media partner requirements.

Taking the Next Steps Forward

As media-rich organizations move more towards cloud-based operations and virtual offices, the benefits of this Video Asset Management approach with Dalet Flex are enhanced. Our platform simplifies, streamlines, and connects the entire content supply chain to help teams:

• plan and manage
• produce and package
• curate and archive
• orchestrate and automate
• distribute and publish
• analyze and monetize

Dalet Flex supports companies and creative teams whether they work in one area or across all and can be customized to meet specific needs. With an integrated content supply chain ecosystem, content creators can now automate processes for metadata, cataloging, Video Asset Management, and other tasks that run within these operations to create and deliver the robust and targeted content that audiences actively look for.

The demand for multimedia content will only continue to expand. So will the demands for producing even more great content at the lowest possible cost and in the shortest time frame, whether it is for news broadcasters, media & entertainment companies, sports teams, leagues and federations, brands, corporations and any other media-rich organizations. Video Asset Management coupled to workflow and process automation, in whatever form it takes, promises to be a key factor in separating successful content providers from the rest, setting a higher standard for productivity.

The post How to Master Video Asset Management appeared first on Dalet.

In this blog post, we discuss some of the typical failure modes that we see in mezzanine content, and how the combination of Dalet’s Ooyala Flex Media Platform and Bitmovin’s Encoding joint solution can help mitigate them with technical metadata, black bar removal, deinterlacing, color correction, and more! We cover some of the top issues that affect a viewer’s quality of experience and how our solutions can help your organization resolve them. 

Quality Matters – Factors that affect viewer experience

There are countless factors that can negatively affect your subscribers’ experience – luckily most of them can be resolved with a simple combination of accurate meta-data and specific dashboard inputs. For your convenience we’ve organized the top six factors that will make the most positive impact on your workflow:

Black Bar removal

Perhaps one of the most noticeable factors that may affect a viewer’s Quality of Experience is the addition of those pesky Black Bars that appear on both sides of a video player during playback. Bars or letter-box artifacts occur when an asset of a non-conforming aspect ratio is introduced somewhere in the workflow. A mezzanine asset typically would not see this, but where content has moved through upstream systems – the likelihood increases. Typically Bitmovin’s tools initiate a black bar removal if either an asset’s technical metadata requires it or the Ooyala Flex ingest path determines it necessary.  

For correction, Bitmovin encode contains a cropping filter, which can be controlled through the Ooyala Flex Media Platform to remove the required pixels or frame percentage, thus correcting the image. You can see this process here.

Some of the aspect ratio issues that may come up within the Pixel Aspect Ratio (PAR), Storage Aspect Ratio (SAR), and/or Display Aspect Ratio (DAR). The ideal AR should be as follows:

• PAR: the aspect ratio of the video pixels themselves. For 576i, it’s 59:54 or 1.093.
• SAR: the dimensions of the video frame, expressed as a ratio. For a 576i video, this is 5:4 (720×576).
• DAR: the aspect ratio the video should be played back at. For SD video, this is 16:9.

Technical metadata detection within Ooyala Flex will, in most cases, correctly determine the aspect ratio characteristics, allowing the encoding profile in Bitmovin’s dashboard to be adjusted automatically. These are all characteristics of a video asset. Getting it wrong either in detection, encoding, or playback results in squashed video playback. 

Color-Correction

Bitmovin’s encoder contains a powerful set of color space, color range, and color primary manipulation logic. While not a full color-grading solution, the encoding workflow can easily be modified to correct for color issues commonly found in mezzanine formats.

Deinterlacing

Interlacing or deinterlacing can be used to drastically improve the visual performance of your fast-moving content. When manipulating these aspects of the encode it’s important to have a full view of the input asset making the decision to trigger these ‘filters’ for either content of a particular source, a particular technical metadata characteristic, or as part of a human-driven QA process.

Conformance (FPS)

Source content is unlikely to always be captured at the same frame-rate. US-sourced content can range from 29.97 FPS to capture rate of 25/50 FPS – or even faster! Although the normal role of the encoder is to conform all inputs to a given frame-per-second, especially when ad-insertion is used, there are also some use cases where certain content coming through certain workflows need to maintain different (and higher) values.

Post/Precuts

Rarely will content start exactly where you want it to, be it color-bars or lead-in titles, or simply a longer form recording that runs too long. Being able to clip out a beginning by X seconds and clip out an end at Y seconds can avoid the costly exercise of offlining content for craft editing. The Ooyala Flex-powered workflow can control clip-in and clip-out parameters, automating ingest where required.

Ooyala Flex-powered clip-in and clip-pout parameter automated workflow (visualized)

Audio-Leveling

Some content is loud, some content is quiet. The audio-filter allows all or selected content to have it’s volume adjusted making for a uniform viewer experience.

How will you overcome QoE issues?

To summarize there are six key factors that often affect a user’s QoE: black bars, poor coloring, incorrect lacing for visual quality, non-optimized FPS, content length, and inappropriate audio volume. So, how do you overcome the most glaring QoE issue: aspect ratio-related issues?

How to detect Aspect Ratio-related QoE issues

When it comes to content preparation, everything really starts with the Ooyala Flex Media Platform, extracting Technical Metadata from incoming media. This critical step extracts information such as format, framerate, frame size, colour space, D.A.R., P.A.R., codecs, bitrates, and specific details for codecs in use (e.g. GOP structures, profiles, audio sample rates and bit-depths), audio track counts, timecode start time and duration.

OoyalaMAM displaying technical metadata for a media asset

This wealth of technical information stored as metadata against the media asset can be easily utilized throughout any workflow orchestration process, enabling the construction of bespoke validation criteria, ensuring the media is compliant. If validation happens to fail, workflow orchestration can take steps to rectify any issue automatically.

The evaluation of the technical side of our media is a great start, but what about validation of the media essence?

The Ooyala Flex Media Platform incorporates a number of tools that allow clients to effortlessly integrate with external products; a perfect example of this integration is for automated quality control, such as Dalet AmberFin. Automated QC reports from external products can be analyzed by Ooyala Flex, workflow orchestration can take remedial action to correct any QC issues, and submit corrected media to automated QC again to ensure compliance.

OoyalaMAM transcode action manual selection

OoyalaMAM auto-QC report stored as asset metadata

In addition to automated QC, we also have the ability to create tasks for users to perform manual QC. Manual QC tasks can even be augmented from a previous automated QC run by highlighting ‘soft errors’ as temporal metadata annotations in a timeline ‘Review’. This orchestrated usage of human intervention helps ensure that our workflow does not stall, deadlines are met, and most importantly, quality does not suffer. 

For more information on the combined Dalet + Bitmovin capabilities, you can watch the recording of our most recent joint webinar here, and if you’d like to further discuss how to best address your QoE issues, do reach out!

The post Quality of Experience: leveling the content creation playing field appeared first on Dalet.

Content discovery for consumers

It is well documented that the success of online video relies, in part, on metadata. Metadata-centric workflows give viewers the freedom to become more engaged. They can discover and explore more content, navigating directly to the most interesting scenes (including the intent of the scene, e.g. serene, suspense, etc.).

Publishers can fully monetize viewer habits and experiences in the most effective way possible with a Media Asset Management (MAM) & Orchestration platform that allows end-to-end authoring and managing asset metadata in their production workflow. For on-demand video consumption, accurate description of content is key to help narrow recommendation engines to more relevant suggestions. For ad-based or product placement models, metadata helps define the optimal in-stream video insertion points, allowing publishers greater control and flexibility with their advertising strategies. Scene metadata such as character name, player name, topic, keyword, etc. become key. The more accurate and rich the description of these insertion points, the better the advertisers can pick the slots that fit both their target audience and the brand experience they look to create.

Metadata-driven operations & workflows

Today, metadata is also at the heart of the orchestration of workflows and automation of processes, both of which become increasingly important to streamline and scale production and distribution operations. Any process and/or action in the chain of operations can be triggered by any change or fulfillment of a condition on any of the fields of the data model. These configurable metadata-driven workflows are extremely powerful. While the industry has moved away from the simplicity of “one profile per customer”, we can today create an environment where a single workflow can produce all the desired outputs just by changing the metadata that initiates a particular process.

Managing complex media objects

Metadata is core to structure and manage complex media objects and their relations, to enable operations like versioning and packaging of track stacks or compositions. To enable better collaboration and flawless content transformation and curation, organizations need to disintermediate the supply chain. One of the key concepts is to avoid the confirmation of a project or a composition until it actually needs to be packaged for an output. To enable this, media management platforms need to handle complex objects seamlessly so that users can work directly with the elementary components of a media package or project. This gives them the ability to manipulate, transform, share and repurpose content in a very efficient and agile way – a concept called transclusion. The Dalet Galaxy platform’s user tools, data model, and workflow engine offer a robust and configurable framework to power these types of operations. They support all the industry latest standards like IMF, DPP and many others.

Augmenting media tagging & operations with AI

Video is a complex medium that requires both human-authored metadata, which is flexible and traditionally more accurate, and automatically-created metadata, which is quickly growing thanks to AI-powered services. AI is indeed a key next step for the media industry. Dalet has recently showcased, at IBC 2017, some first prototypes connecting a selection of AI engines to the Dalet Galaxy platform in order to build new services that range from simple, automated content indexing and metadata generation, all the way to smart assistants that augment user operations. Deployable on-premises or in the cloud, these services produce time-correlated, multi-dimensional metadata from audio and video data, unlocking new insights. Coupling these services with the Dalet Galaxy platform provides broadcasters and media organizations with an end-to-end solution that will serve as an enabler to capture tomorrow’s business opportunities and generate new benefits.

The post Metadata is “The New Gold”! appeared first on Dalet.

The first thing to say is that the world is a pretty big place, which means that the practice of subtitling and captioning, and the drivers behind it, can vary wildly. So, for example, in Western Europe broadcasters are expected to provide subtitles as part of a package of access services, helping those who might otherwise not fully enjoy television.

In the UK, for example, the Communications Act 2003 expects a broadcaster to provide subtitling for a minimum of 80% of its output, along with audio description on 10% and signing on 5%.This is part of the broadcaster’s public responsibilities.

Captioning as an Aid to Boost Literacy Efforts  

Also a public service, but in a very different way, is the situation in China and India, where again regulations expect large amounts of content to be subtitled, but here there is a second purpose alongside helping the hearing impaired.

Dr Brij Kothari, an Indian academic and a social entrepreneur, discovered through research that showing subtitles subconsciously forces the brain to read as well as listen, and so boosts literacy in communities where traditionally it was low. This way, captioning becomes a simple and inexpensive boost to a general literacy campaign. Karaoke can claim many of the same benefits, too.  

Captioning Helps with Language Ambiguity  

In China, Korea and Japan, which have very subtle languages where a simple shift in intonation can change the entire meaning of a word, written subtitles can help take away the ambiguity of the spoken dialogue. In a country the size of China, inevitably accents vary hugely even when they are speaking “standard” Chinese, so again subtitles can help clarify what is being said.

Japanese broadcasters have taken the national love of precise ornamentation and playful decoration and applied it to subtitles. Words may appear one by one, or in different colors, fonts and sizes, to capture and reflect the spirit of what is being said.

Taken to the other extreme, a BBC article on subtitles written as far back as 2006 suggests that subtitles can help you keep up with the plot even if you are eating noisy snack food while watching television. 

Even if some of the original thinking behind subtitling television came from a public service obligation, today they are widely appreciated and make your programs accessible to a wider audience, whatever the reason they turn on the subtitles. In our highly competitive, multi-channel world, any way you can boost the audience is surely a good thing.

Don’t Fear 

And if it is a good thing on television, then why would you not want to do it on your online services too? The only reason can be the fear of technical disasters, tracking subtitle formats and edited content through the delivery pipeline to packaging.

As I said many times when addressing the subject, the key to making this work painlessly is to handle subtitles as a master format in metadata wrapped alongside the audio and video. Transcode at the point of delivery just as you do with the rest of the content. Simple – and clear.

The post Clarifying the Words: Captioning Beyond the Public Service Obligation appeared first on Dalet.

The EBU shares our point of view- QC is key. “Broadcasters moving to file-based production facilities have to consider how to use automated Quality Control (QC) systems. Manual quality control is simply not adequate anymore and it does not scale,” so says the EBU.

The EBU recognized QC as an important topic for the media industry in 2010. In 2011 it started an EBU Strategic Program on Quality Control, with the aim to collect requirements, experiences and to create recommendations for broadcasters implementing file-based QC in their facilities.

So What is QC All About? 

In this blog, I questioned whether the broadcast industry really understands what Media Asset Management (MAM) systems are, and here too in QC, I fear that some vendors are muddying the waters. In Quality Control the big clue is in the word “control” and the role played by QC systems must not be confused with Test & Measurement (T&M) or Quality Assurance (QA) systems.

In short, QC requires careful T&M of media parameters as a starting point but then the user needs to analyze the T&M data in order to make decisions (control) before modifying processes and making other decisions to assure quality is maintained throughout a file-based workflow.

The Role of EBU in Bringing Stability to QC 

To do this consistently, we need all the technology vendors to measure and report on these measures in the same way. The EBU QC project has succeeded in defining a set of metrics that can be consistently measured and reported on. The full range of QC criteria has been presented by the EBU as a periodic table which would grace (and fill) any chemistry lab wall.

But the great standardization work does not stop there – within the UK-based Digital Production Partnership (DPP) much more work has been done to identify the optimum number of tests required to prove that a DPP compliant file is indeed, compliant.

The DPP’s aim is to take the completed EBU definitions & create a minimum set of tests & tolerance levels required to deliver a compliant DPP AS-11 file to UK Broadcasters. The timeline for implementation will depend on the outputs of the EBU group, but publication is likely to be during Spring this year.

Over time, the UK’s broadcasters will move away from performing a full QC check on all delivered programs, and rely on a spot check. A spot check, as opposed to full QC, is a technical video and audio check for every program at the start, mid-point, and end. It also includes checks on key metadata such as SOM, duration, identifiers etc.

Production companies will be required to deliver their compliant files along with a valid QC report, as has previously been the case with the PSE report.

Why Not Engage with the EBU Project Online? 

The important thing in all of this work is that the recommendations that are made are based on the largest collective point of view possible. The EBU really appreciate input from as many people and organizations as possible. If you are a broadcaster, an SI, or indeed a QC product provider then why not get involved – go to the EBU’s website and follow the instructions to provide your feedback to this important initiative.

The post QC Within File-Based Workflows – an EBU Update appeared first on Dalet.

The broadcaster’s perspective was provided by Shane Tucker from UK broadcaster, Channel 4. The broadcaster does not produce content itself, however it does commission a great deal of content. Channel 4 is not alone in the UK commissioning market – together with the BBC and ITV, Shane explained how it identified the need for a joined up approach.

DPP – Strength Through a Unified Approach

The UK broadcasters that established DPP have a desire to establish the means for shared learning and best practice with other UK broadcasters. Also, if UK broadcasters are unified in their adoption of digital file-based workflows, they can exert a greater influence outside of the UK. Both of these opinions were confirmed by Shane Tucker in the webinar.

Another key advantage for our industry focuses on production companies. Major production companies supply several UK broadcasters and it will be a big benefit to them if we can standardize on one media interchange standard.

What Benefits Does DPP Bring to Channel 4?

To start with DPP just makes sense. This view was confirmed by Shane Tucker, who said in the Webinar that DPP represents a common file format based on established standards (MXF, SMPTE, EBU) and has been established in conjunction with major UK broadcasters, screen & production companies.

Furthermore, Shane highlighted that DPP offers a common descriptive metadata schema. It offers the ability to access, process and automate metadata within digital file-based workflows is so important. It creates improved efficiency associated with automated workflows between broadcasters and their trusted suppliers. It cuts down on the need for data re-entry and speeds up material transfer and processing from delivery to playout/CDN avoiding unnecessary transcoding.

Automated QC Workflows

Another advantage of DPP is the potential to capitalize on automatic QC workflows with the production company or facility. In the webinar, Shane Tucker pointed out that there is a strong likelihood that QC processes will have been performed at numerous stages in the workflow before the media file reaches Channel 4 so any further QC cycles are unnecessary.

Shane concluded his contribution to the webinar by highlighting a number of challenges that remain in the successful adoption of DPP, not least the support needed from equipment vendors. We recognize this and we’re straining every sinew in our efforts to support this fantastic UK initiative.

The post Digital Production Partnership (DPP) – A Broadcaster’s Perspective appeared first on Dalet.

TVT can claim to be one of the first (even perhaps the first) European media facility that employs entirely file-based operations throughout its workflow. From its UK base, TVT provides media supply facilities for a broad range of ‘broadcasters’ from BBC Worldwide and other UK TV channels, NBC, Netflix and Disney. 

The Modern Media Factory

TVT epitomizes a modern media factory, processing thousands and thousands of hours of content. It challenge is to process the media and make it ‘playout ready’ as efficiently as possible whilst still retaining the intrinsic media quality. 

The core processes of media ingest, QC, regional legal compliance, editing, sub-titling, dubbing and transcoding are performed specifically for each client and to their individual technical specifications. The facility’s perspective is unique since they gain an overview of the entire content creation and distribution chain. 

Sitting in between the content owner and the final playout centre can cause considerable challenges, and in this respect standardisation around DPP can be the answer, so suggested Kim Thesiger during his presentation.

It Just Works

The previous workflow had big areas of expense – VTRs, tape stock, shipping and labour to name a few, but it had the big advantage that it just worked since there was one global standard – the Digi Beta VTR.

Kim pointed out that the file-based revolution has turned the whole process on its head. Server hardware is less expensive, stock cost is zero, as is delivery cost. But, on the other hand, virtually nothing works out of the box. Almost no delivery formats are alike, files received from clients are of a very variable quality and legalizing files is a more difficult task than legalizing video tapes. Also, many manufacturers fail to conform to standards, so Kim reported.

AS-11 Standardization is a Positive Step Forward

Kim sees the adoption of the AS-11 standard as the first attempt to rationalize this situation. He regards it as a real world solution and worthy of the major backing it is receiving within the UK. As he reported, any standard cannot be successful unless it is built into leading solutions and it is perceived as being required by the industry.

Is the Glass Half Full or Half Empty?

However, the facility does have some issues with the AS-11 standard, especially in the video file specification. Kim reported that the spec does not play happily within all major NLE systems; currently few playout centers accept 100Mbps files, and he sees a danger in smaller companies creating badly formed files.

Despite these reservations, TVT does strongly supports the metadata standards within DPP since this is a far bigger issue to the facility. No two metadata standards are alike – to this day, TVT still receives MS Word files and even paperwork from clients. It is incredibly labour intensive to edit or rekey this data.

TVT has recently rolled out a production company interface on its website where clients cankey metadata directly into the company database. Already, this system captures most DPP fields and Kim reported that it will be totally DPP compliant within two months. 

Without doubt, it will help enormously to create standardization within metadata. Like theMXF standard itself, DPP standards will continue to evolve. As does Kim, we would like to see DPP standards built in to more kit from more manufacturers.

The post DPP – The Facility Perspective appeared first on Dalet.

We’re Consistent – Right? 

It seems the answer is “Not really”. One of the hidden consequences of moving to file based workflows is that the metadata we enter into systems is no longer simply “Descriptive”. It is often “Instructive”. In other words, back in the tape days a piece of descriptive metadata such as “Episode Title” was simply a way of conveying information from one human to another. The receiving human could make judgments on whether the spelling, capitalization, language and other aspects of the metadata were good enough.

What’s Happening Today? 

Today, that very same metadata is going to be used by a machine. It is no longer good enough to have the metadata almost right. It has to be exactly right and the hidden instructions that only lived in the heads of the operators are now being performed in software. “If language is French then put the tape in the captioning pile” was just something that “Fred” used to do because he invented the process 10 years ago. Today, we have to carefully instruct the software what we mean by “French”, what we mean by “captioning” and what we mean by “pile”. Your workflow is different to your competitors’ therefore your vital metadata to describe that workflow will also be different.

The Complex File Based Workflows 

Today’s complex file based workflows are driven by metadata. Don’t forget that your QC / ingest and transcode tools need to be just as effective with metadata as they are with audio and video. It’s the little things in life that matter. If you get the 10kByte of metadata correct, then the 100GB of video will be in the right place at the right time at the right cost.

See our metadata plug-in blog post for a way to make our generic tool validate your custom metadata.

The post Argh – Why Can’t We Standardize Our XML Schemas! appeared first on Dalet.

Is this correct or are some commentators perhaps guilty of over-emphasizing the issue? I’m not sure, but there is one thing that I do know for sure – if you are considering a move towards IT-centric operations then it is critical that you start by getting your IT base correct.

It’s Not as Simple as a Trip to PC World 

Before starting to adopt file-based workflows it is essential that you install the right IT backbone and then add the video workflow to it. In the same way that you wouldn’t trust an IT guru to define the video workflow, so why do we think we are good enough to design the IT system and get the redundancy, throughput, latency, power/heat, security, permissions, administration, price point and ROI correct?

From our perspective at AmberFin, we see that there is some tremendously powerful and versatile IT backbone technology around. The trick is investing in technology that is best suited to your business plan, your staff and your budget today, whilst offering you the right opportunities to build and expand in the future.

Let the DPP Help You Define Your IT Architecture 

The nightmare scenario is when you sink everything into an IT platform that effectively leads you down a blind alley. In this respect, the Digital Production Partnership (DPP) offers you an incredibly valuable source of guidance and relevant standards.

The DPP provides a framework that enables the UK broadcast industry to share best practice to help producers and broadcasters maximize the potential of digital production. It also provides guidance on the standardization of technical and metadata requirements, helping to ensure digital video content can be easily and cost-effectively distributed to audiences via multiple platforms.

If you have not already contacted them, I strongly recommend that you visit the DPP website where you will find a treasure trove of information and contacts that could save you a huge amount of time, heartache and money.

Let AmberFin Help You Build a Workflow that the DPP Would be Proud Of 

Once you have the IT infrastructure in place, the key to good workflows is good, accurate metadata.

Start with a simple transcode farm, migrate some QC processes around the ingest point to improve upon the quality of technical, descriptive and timeline metadata. Then join the metadata up to the farm to allow auto-segmentation based on metadata. Base is all on open standards like MXF, AS11 and the DPP specifications and you’ll be heading into an interoperable future.

The post The DPP Can Help You Design Workflows that Work for Legacy Formats appeared first on Dalet.

However, this is not the case here – the DPP specifications create a real life platform that offers the potential for broadcasters and facilities of all types to revolutionize their production workflows. They enable organizations to adopt digital file-based workflows in ways that are both efficient and cost effective. The specifications enable organizations to adopt file-based technologies for intra- and inter-company media transfers. It finally consigns the ‘sneaker-net’ to the rubbish heap of history.

The DPP organization has been instigated by the UK broadcast industry, for the UK broadcast industry. It is an initiative formed by the UK’s public service broadcasters to help producers and broadcasters maximise the benefits of digital production. The partnership is funded by BBC, ITV and Channel 4, with representation from Channel 5, Sky, S4C and the independent sector on its working groups. 

DPP Specifications – A Unique Proposition

Today, the DPP organization is unique. It has taken all the hard work it took to create the SMPTE MXF specification nearly 10 years ago and developed a set of Application Specifications for the UK industry that transform this technical standard into a real world business platform. Looking at it from an international perspective, the DPP specifications are the first of these Application Specifications to receive national scale adoption. It certainly won’t be the last.

Although its focus is strictly UK-based, the DPP specifications offer a model that could be equally applicable to any other regional market. As we know from our conversations at AmberFin, broadcasters and facilities in many other countries are closely following the progress of this first project of its kind.

As the saying goes, a racehorse designed by a committee ends up looking like a camel. But it is not the case here. The DPP organization draws on industry experts from the worlds of technology and broadcast production to help fulfill its remit. It is refreshing to see design engineers from so many different organizations, including competitive technology vendors, working together to create a single integrated set of format descriptions, and thereby a level playing field.

Lessons from the DPP Focused Webinar

And the industry really is behind the DPP specifications. As we saw earlier this year, when we staged a special DPP focused webinar, there is a groundswell of support for the DPP specifications from major broadcast industry players such as Channel 4, Red Bee and TVT.

The DPP organization has been successful in establishing a road map in digital production in the UK. The DPP specifications provide a framework that enables the UK industry to come together and share best practice in digital production and help producers and broadcasters maximize the potential of the digital revolution. Also, it leads the standardization of technical and metadata requirements within the UK, helping to ensure digital video content can be easily and cost-effectively distributed to audiences via multiple platforms.

And now, at IBC, we hear news of the first adopters of the DPP specifications. BT Sport is an imaginative and impressive new channel launch. Its adoption of the DPP specifications will simplify delivery of content to other broadcasters. 

This is just the start. At AmberFin, we whole-heatedly support the DPP organization here in the UK. We believe it has the ability to transform the UK broadcast industry. Furthermore, we believe it provides a blueprint that could be easily adopted in many other international markets.

The post Do We Need Reminding Just How Beneficial DPP Can Be? appeared first on Dalet.

Today we’re experiencing an explosion of content, largely created by a corresponding explosion in HD content capture devices, backed up by today’s super connected world.

Against this background, Adobe is striving to achieve and maintain a market leadership position and to enable this, it requires strong relationships with like-minded companies who possess complimentary technologies and platforms to their own. The purpose of the well-attended New York event was to spotlight the relationship between Dalet and Adobe, illustrating how customers can combine the two companies’ offerings to evolve to a more interactive and collaborative model compared to traditional file-based workflows approaches.

In his presentation, Dennis explained how Adobe’s evolution of new and improved feature sets and enabling new workflows within media enterprise operations is central to maintaining their leadership position. In creating Adobe Premiere CC2014, the company has effectively re-written the rulebook in file-based workflows, and this platform is enjoying tremendous success with users and media operations worldwide.

However, Dennis was swift to recognize that no company offers a complete solution, from cradle to grave. He recognized that how users get into and out of the Adobe section of the production workflow is key to their success. To this end, Adobe has invested heavily in an open architecture approach called Content Panels, which provides the doorway into Adobe Premiere.

Some time ago at Dalet, we recognized the potential that Content Panels offer to create a new breed of supercharged production workflows and interactions. That combination of Adobe Premiere and Dalet’s Galaxy MAM platform is a prime example of the superior extended workflows that users can create with a single integrated user interface.

Within his presentation, Dennis explained how Adobe is moving into the area of collaborative editing. In Adobe Anywhere, the company has developed an enterprise class editing platform that is generating a lot of interest from the post community. This platform, combined with a MAM system to sit alongside, is the ideal solution for organizations wanting more exposure, collaboration and oversight over their rich content.

So, how does the Dalet Adobe Premiere plug-in work

At Dalet, we have developed an intuitive Adobe Premiere plug-in, which enables users to employ our well-established browse, preview (in High-Res or Proxy resolution) and search facilities within the Premiere user interface.

Loading an asset to this interface requires no media movement and editing is achieved in place and collaboratively with other editors, even while recording is in progress. Importantly, Dalet MAM asset and logging metadata flows through the editing process in order to provide the editor with relevant metadata from producers such as editorial notes or from automated systems such as closed captions or QC.

With Dalet WebSpace tools, this editorial collaboration and contribution from other team members can be achieved concurrently with the editors. Our Dalet web-based Storyboarder provides any user with a simple and intuitive means of quickly and accurately gathering shots in either private or shared bins accessible to both Galaxy and Premiere users.

This approach can be used for anything, from simple clipping, accessible by all, to full-fledged storyboarding, where you can assemble and review a sequence prior to sharing sequence with craft editors for more complex editing or saving that storyboard as an asset to be reused by all later.

This means that within Adobe Premiere, all Dalet MAM audio, video, clips and EDLs assets can be open in place together with all the parent asset’s metadata flowing through. Finished Premiere projects or sequences can be saved as Dalet assets as well, thus making them accessible to all authorized users for reuse, concurrently. And finally, Premiere conformed projects inherit all of the parent’s assets metadata used in the creation of this project, such as editorial notes, captions, rights etc, which in turn flows through to the finished piece in the MAM catalog. So for example, you don’t need to re-caption the promo if the sources you used had captions.

Finally with the advent of Adobe Anywhere, the same Dalet Plugin will soon be able to maintain the same user experience while connected to the Dalet MAM catalog and working with content, but instead, this content is served to the editor, say in the field, via Anywhere streaming and rendering platform.

At Dalet, we are really excited about the potential that this collaborative development project offers to broadcasters and facilities of all sizes. It illustrates what can be produced when like-minded companies come together with a shared vision and determination.

The post Dalet and Adobe Make Sense of Content Creation and Sharing in a Super Connected Mobile World appeared first on Dalet.

If we are fortunate enough to win, then the award will be very timely since it will highlight the importance of the DPP initiative just ahead of its self-imposed deadline. From October this year, the uptake of a common file formats for HD and SD content delivery among UK broadcasters, first agreed in principle over two and half years ago, looks set to become a reality.

What does the DPP deadline mean?

The deadline means that UK broadcasters now require all content to be delivered by UK program makers digitally using AS-11, the internationally- recognized standard that constrains SMPTE’s MXF from the Advanced Media Workflow Association.

Any suppliers still delivering content on tape this autumn, however, are unlikely to be shown the door, according to Kevin Burrows, DPP’s Technical Standards Lead, who is also CTO for broadcast and distribution at UK terrestrial broadcaster Channel 4. There’s not going not to be a cut-off date as such, but it will depend on what the suppliers’ contract cycle is with the broadcaster. But the rules will apply to all new TV shows, he explains. 

The last update to the main spec (Version 4) was announced in October, and according to Burrows, while there is still some fine tuning to be achieved in relation to the QC process, the UK TV industry is pretty much there in terms of nailing the standard.

As with any standard, there are inevitably areas that will need to be clarified. As we have previously stated on this blog, if you take all the combinations of wrappers, video codecs, audio codecs, track layouts, time code options, metadata and other ancillary data and complete a ‘minimal’ in/out functional test matrix then you end up with a test plan that will take at least 1800 years to complete.

It can be argued that this is true of any standard ever tested. If you tested every possible function on Windows software then it would take the same amount of time. DPP should be applauded for trying to keep it simple. There is an HD standard and an SD standard. In terms of metadata, what Kevin and his DPP colleagues have tried to do is constrain it greatly; and yes, language can be misinterpreted, but they are aiming to make the process and the standard as constrained and bombproof as possible to minimize errors, yet with enough flexibility and versatility to be commercially useful.

Plan your DPP deployment with time to rehearse

October will be upon us before we know it and whilst the early adopters such as BT Sport are already reaping a rich dividend from their investment it is still not too late to start your DPP adoption strategy. If you’re wondering about solutions to the following functions:

• Ingesting tapes to the DPP delivery specification
• Transcoding files to the DPP delivery specification
• Building QC workflows to verify your files meet the DPP delivery specification
• Editing DPP metadata in a busy environment
• Exchanging DPP metadata in a MAM environment

Then you should know that AmberFin is one of a group of vendors that has developed a sophisticated portfolio of DPP-supporting production tools to help you find the solution for you.

The post DPP Deadline Day – What’s All the Fuss About? appeared first on Dalet.

The end is the building of enterprise operations around the media transformation process. How can we make the most efficient media factory possible – one that will thrive in today’s dynamic market?

When looked at in this way, DPP is so much more then really creative technology and thoughtful standardisation. DPP is a platform around which businesses can expand their enterprise operations, increase operating efficiency and minimise task duplication and resource waste.

Make your business exempt to interoperability tax 

If your business were to become an early adopter of DPP, you would be making yourself exempt from an interoperability tax (if such a thing existed). When you look at a single transaction, the extra cost and resources needed if system interoperability is an issue might seem insignificant, but when you multiply this by hundreds of files the cost soon adds up to something really significant.

In a standardized DPP world, to achieve true system interoperability across the industry there would be a limited amount of pain and cost felt by everybody but this would be shared equally amongst the organizations involved and it would be a limited cost, which is incurred only once. After this point, our industry has a fantastic common interchange format to help encourage partnerships and build businesses.

In a world that has adopted DPP, media and metadata interoperability is not an issue since the format is built on a strong, detailed common interchange specification. In this homogeneous scenario the resources that would have been used in the interoperability engineering process can be used in more creative and productive ways, such as programme making. 

Let’s exploit DPP’s potential and grow our enterprise operations 

The essence of the problem facing our industry today is the lack of a common interchange format to enable these transactions. DPP is the first open public interchange format that is specifically designed to address this issue. DPP is intended to transform today’s 20 per cent trickle of file-based media transactions between organizations into an 80 per cent flood in the shortest time.

Yes, in many ways DPP represents a technological innovation but we must never forget the business driver that underpins all of this activity. Whether you are a public service broadcaster or an independent production facility, DPP offers something new and quite different. Its potential to open up new commercial opportunities and generate new business is tremendous.

The hard work has been done by DPP. Now, the challenge is how we adopt it. In this situation, the biggest winners will be the first to recognize the opportunity that DPP presents. If you would like to explore these opportunities with one of the leading supporters of DPP then contact us. 

The post Building a Business Around DPP appeared first on Dalet.

To ease the problems of inter-company \ inter-department file transfer, and ultimately drive down and cost of entertaining the good people of the UK.

In this blog post I plan to demonstrate how different features in the iCR GUI, the segmentation track and the DPP specific Metadata plug-in, can be used in conjunction to speed up and therefore reduce the cost of delivery to the DPP specification a little more. 

In previous blogs I discussed the iCR segment track, how to translate data from UQC analysis and human review of this automatically generated information into an edit list, and the iCR Metadata plug-in for the generation of a side car XML file containing Metadata describing the contents of a file. This blogs aim is to show how they work together:

Step 1:

After ingest or transcode to the DPP delivery specification, or if you have been supplied with a file which requires the addition of the DPP Metadata. You can start by dragging the file into the iCR library and initiating a quick scan of the content with a focus on color bars and repeated black frames, the two main start of content identifiers specified by DPP. Upon completion of the QC scan the file can be loaded to the iCR player, the QC data returned from the analysis will be displayed in the iCR timeline.

Step 2: 

The user can then scroll across the timeline using the “K” and “L” keys on their keyboard, jumping from QC event to QC event quickly identifying the start and end of each content segment, the mark in and out point of each segment can be set by simply pressing the “I”and “O” keys respectively, the section of content added to the segment track by right clicking on the track and clicking ‘Add From In and Out’.

Once all segments have been added to the segments track, opening the Segment Table Editor (see above) allows the rename of each segment to something more meaningful, if required.

Right click on the Segment track and open the Segment Table Editor, then double click on the Segment name and replace with a name of your liking.

Click OK and confirm the update to the QCML data.

Step 3: 

The DPP Plug-in can now be populated. Provided you chose to install the DPP option during the install of iCR, the plug-in will be available as a tab on the right hand side of the GUI. Click on this and the plug-in will appear. Complete the required fields and any optional ones that you have the data for and click ‘Save’. The associated XML file will be generated in the same location as the asset.

Finally the Metadata and segment information can be written to the MXF wrapper with a click of the ‘Insert’ button, for delivery.

Should you receive a DPP compliant file and require the Metadata XML, this can be extracted from the wrapper and an XML file generated with the click of a button. Then import the file to a library, load into the player and click the ‘Extract’ button. The plug-in will automatically populate and create the XML file in the same location as the essence file.

The post 3 Steps to Using the iCR Segment Track to Assist Population of DPP Metadata appeared first on Dalet.

In an ideal world Metadata would be standardized and indeed steps are being taken in the industry to achieve this with the likes of AS-11 and AS-12 and DPP picking up steam, but we are not there yet.

In the meantime there are countless requirements for XML Metadata layouts, it is for this reason that iCR allows you to create and edit the layout file so you can generate XML Metadata which meets your needs with the Metadata Layout Editor.

Step 1: 

Start by launching the Layout Editor from the Windows Start Menu:

Start -> Programs -> AmberFin -> Metadata Layout Editor -> Layout Editor

If this is the first time you have used the Editor there are a number of steps which need to be completed.

If you have never used a Plug-in with iCR start by adding the Plug-in to iCR, do this by clicking:

Install Plugin at the top of the Editor.

Next create a folder on your machine, this will become your Sandbox which allows you to generate and edit layouts before applying to the iCR Metadata Plug-in.

In the Layout Editor File menu click Add Layout Root Folder and point to yourSandbox directory and click open.

Step 2:

If you wish to create a new layout from scratch you can click:

New Layout from the File Menu, give it a name and click OK.

The new layout file will be reflected in the directory topology window, you can now start building the layout of choice beginning with the Layout Settings.

Step 3:

A help section is available in the GUI which gives details on each of the Settings fields.

Once the settings are configured you can start adding the required fields.

Click on the Fields Tab and you will be welcomed by a blank template to start building your plug-in. 

Click on the ” + ” button to add a new field, now enter the field details in the right hand pane.

Step 4: 

There are a number of System Properties available in the Data Type drop down list which auto populate for a file loaded into iCR. There are also Operator free text fields, button and QC event fields which can be added to the layout.

Once you have added the details of a new field click Save Field, the left hand pane will update.

Repeat the above steps until you have added all your required fields before saving and deploying your layout to iCR.

Step 5: 

Deploy by clicking Save Layout, Deploy Layout and confirm.

This saves a copy of the layout in your sandbox and copies this to the default plug-in location in iCR, C:\Program Files (x86)\AmberFin\iCR\plugins.

Launch iCR and open the plugin to the GUI.

 And review your good work.

The Layout Editor also allows you to modify existing layouts.

To do this, drop your existing layout XML file into your sandbox, right click in the Topology window and refresh the folders, the new XML file will appear.

Double click on the file and it will populate the fields in the editor.

Using the same techniques as above you can add new fields, edit existing fields, remove unwanted ones or simply reorder the fields in the layout.

That’s it really, a quick overview of the Metadata Layout Editor, it should be enough to get you started… Enjoy!

The post 5 Steps to Creating or Modifying a Metadata Schema in AmberFin iCR appeared first on Dalet.

So what do we take from this – mainly that DPP is just the first set of national scale application specifications of the MXF format, but almost definitely it won’t be the last. So let’s look a little closer at this set of standards and ask how it might have appeal beyond the UK.

Firstly, and importantly, DPP is defined by broadcast industry users to meet a business need for media interchange, not by the vendors to meet a business need to sell more software (what am I saying!!). So, the focus is on best practice within file-based workflows as defined by the people and organizations that are working in this area day-in, day-out.

DPP makes current standards work 

Another important factor is that DPP is NOT a new standard. It is a set of constraints on existing standards and tools to meet an economically big enough market. It provides a framework that enables the UK industry to come together and share best practice in digital production and help producers and broadcasters maximize the potential of the digital revolution. Also, it leads the standardization of technical and metadata requirements within the UK, helping to ensure digital video content can be easily and cost-effectively distributed to audiences via multiple platforms.  

In a world of extremely diverse media utilization, it is impossible to create a “one shoe fits all” media format. The business requirements for archiving the production master of a new movie are different from the business requirements for exchanging a metadata rich proxy across a business network. The best we can do is to have a hierarchy of standards that reduce the number of variants in an application.

MXF is the toolbox standard. OP1a is the complexity constraint of the MXF toolbox. AS11 is the application constraint of the OP1a pattern. DPP is the shim (smallest specification) that defines how that application will be used in a given environment i.e. the UK Digital Production Partnership.

Unicode ready 

DPP uses technologies that are Unicode ready. This means it will functionally work for Europe, the Americas and Asia. So, if other countries wish, they can take the DPP standard and immediately benefit from the very large amount of standardization work that has been done in the UK. I’m a great believer in economy of effort, and in this respect choosing DPP as a model to reduce the effort in developing new international implementations appears to be a ‘no brainer’.

Looking at the challenge from an international context, content interchange is a global business with a local twist. The interchange metadata may have to be localized into different languages and different cultural needs. DPP is a great template for how to do that.

The alternative will be costly 

Looking at the challenge from a different perspective it soon becomes clear that the cost and effort of radically diverting from DPP is huge. Copying DPP leverages the technology constraints AND the hard work put in by the vendors to date. These vendors operate within international markets and we will be delighted to see this work being carried over into other territories – it almost reaffirms your confidence in the innate intelligence of mankind!

Aside from economy of effort, at AmberFin we are also great supporters of a simple approach – even to big and complex challenges. DPP is designed to be simple for the small production houses AND for the big broadcasters. Keep it simple, cover 90% of the needs with 10% of the effort and it will be adopted

The standards are openly and freely (no charge) available. Your market can reduce costs, just like the UK is doing.

The post Is DPP Relevant Outside of the UK? appeared first on Dalet.