tvbe december 2014 tedial supplement
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TVBEurope supplementTRANSCRIPT
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December 2014TVBEurope Supplements
Media Asset Management
In association with
Perfect media management requires an
exceptionally well integrated IT architecture.
To maximise the capabilities of the modern
broadcast facility, it’s essential for MAM technology
providers to apply precision in IT technology to
broadcast and media. Back in 2004, the industry
began to label the forthcoming IT transition
‘tapeless’, but there was much more to it than that;
the realities of a cost-effective and scalable multi-
site enterprise media workfl ow were going to be far
more challenging than just having ‘less tape’.
Many suppliers proposed short-term proprietary
adaptions of their broadcast technology, which
in the long run didn’t go far enough. To really
succeed, it was important to think ahead of
that curve. The key was to design a Media
Process Manager (MPM), a common platform
that globally manages both automated media
workfl ows and application services integration.
However, the high throughput required by a
business-driven workfl ow also required solutions
that were more open and scalable. The
answer was the development of a Business
Process Modelling engine (BPM) specifi cally
tailored for broadcast and media operations.
This could provide a more effi cient ‘joined
up’ media process model, which enabled
integration throughout the business for archive,
production workfl ow and content preparation
for multiscreen. A cross-platform web-based user
interface and web-based API were also required
to provide every operator with media tools at
every desktop, in every department, at every
site; enabling stronger internal and external
working practices.
Continuous access to content Fast forward to 2014. The right media IT solutions
architecture now provides broadcasters with
full integration across their entire business
from acquisition and production through to
packaging and delivery, enabling increasingly
effi cient and cost-effective operations.
Traditional linear playout and viewing on-
demand evolved much quicker than many
expected into the concept of ‘content
everywhere’ via smart TVs, tablets, smartphones
and PCs. To keep up with the pace of this
consumer behaviour, broadcasters need to have
a number of key processes in place including
multi-site, multi-format, multi-platform delivery,
and, increasingly, media business reporting.
Today’s broadcasters require media tools
that provide continuous access to content
throughout their business. Removing the
unnecessary, and at times overwhelming
complexity caused by multiple workfl ow states,
wrappers and codecs enables easier discovery
of related media. By providing better tools, this
complexity is replaced by a logical view of the
content and workfl ow with direct access to
the different components for validation: forms
to easily select audio, and metadata enrichment
for packaging and delivery of content in the
correct format.
MAM Supplementii TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com December 2014
Next generation MAMBusiness-driven media workfl ow
By Julian Fernández-Campón, head of solutions architecture at Tedial
“It’s important that MAM solutions deliver a media ecosystem that acts and reacts as required by the whole business and is not constrained by individual processes and
departments.”
in association with
TVBEurope iiiDecember 2014 www.tvbeurope.com
MAM Supplement
MAM media tools and an intuitive user interface
optimise operations, using low-res fi les to provide
content anywhere in the business with reduced
latency – no more waiting for the right version.
Today, users can have the tools they need to get
their job done at a higher quality; not a raft of
complex options they will never use.
Reporting and monitoringStepping back, reporting and monitoring is
an increasingly important challenge for any
media company because the volume of
media transactions and the number of delivery
partners have increased so dramatically. To
ensure the highest quality service delivery,
point-by-point manual checking is replaced
by real-time metadata and analysis. Simplifi ed
reporting and live dashboards identify and solve
problems, prioritise tasks and proactively detect
faults and bottlenecks. It’s important that MAM
solutions deliver a media ecosystem that acts
and reacts as required by the whole business
and is not constrained by individual processes
and departments. The use of this data is also
extending beyond the business.
The previous simplicity of linear push
broadcasting and the EPG is now replaced
by a much more complicated and interactive
relationship between subscribers and
broadcasters. Desktop media tools and the API
integrated with third-party business systems,
such as strategic planning, programming and
traffi c, are increasingly being used to provide
search tags and metadata to drive content
discovery and its recirculation by social media.
This reverse path of subscriber data from the CMS
is becoming the crucial battleground
for broadcasters seeking to innovate and
compete successfully in the turbulent
multiscreen transformation.
Scalability Scalability is the key issue. These days, most
customers want to avoid a ‘big bang‘ with
their projects and when launching new
services. Instead, they are seeking stable
yet rapid operational change and improvement
using a common platform to achieve increased
effi ciency. This type of change is usually gradual,
carefully prioritising the specifi c media processes
that will need adaption without disrupting
the existing production process.
To achieve this, the architecture needs to
be fl exible; for example, allowing business
performance to improve without each change
causing costly and complex re-investments in
storage and transcoding.
Media companies have to be considerably more
agile to adapt to the new and more complex
content distribution business models.
MAM processes and media workfl ow
must accelerate success and not hold back
the business.
Multi-site deploymentPractical multi-site deployment is another
area that is often overlooked. Very few of our
customers actually operate on a single site,
instead working with many partners throughout
their production and distribution workfl ow.
In practice, a central production hub ‘on
the ground’ often works with other sites to
enrich and package content by adding rich
metadata, international languages, subtitles,
and creating promos. Effi cient and traceable
content transfer and management is required.
Multi-site deployment capabilities have many
benefi ts such as content migration, and
business continuity with operational cost control
predictably and reduction. This led to the
launch of our Tedial Media Exchange Platform
at IBC this year. Broadcasters and global
media companies worldwide continue to rely
on media IT solutions to manage their entire
media workfl ow; better organise staff; access
content archives; and streamline third-party
technology integration. This allows them to
cost-effectively reach new audiences on every
screen. These solutions signifi cantly increase
creativity and effi ciency by combining multi-site
media management with business-driven media
workfl ows. Day to day, our own solutions enable
our clients to continuously expand and easily
re-confi gure their core media IT to improve
their overall media business performance.
They are adding multi-site working and
continuously tuning their media workfl ows
using open industry standard BPM tools.
Our customers are taking control to proactively
manage their increasing content enrichment
workload and the media throughput that is
required to drive their multi-platform packaging
for multiscreen distribution and success.
“MAM processes and media workfl ow must accelerate success and not hold back
the business.”
2014: a year in MAM2014 has been a highly successful year
for Tedial, with new international value
added integrator partnerships and third-
party integration and company expansion
all coordinated. The recently announced
integration of our archive solutions with Sony
Optical Disc Archive (ODA) provides the
industry with a vital missing link in archive
technology as part of the MAM workfl ow.
This technology provides reliable, long-term
archiving for the preservation of priceless
legacy content with a longer term, more
appropriate technology lifecycle than data
tape. We also unveiled additional third-party
editing workfl ow capabilities by adding Adobe
Premiere Pro CC to those already established
with Apple, Avid and Quantel. To dramatically
improve both editing throughput and multi-
site archive access using Adobe Premiere
Pro CC, Tedial’s Tarsys media workfl ow allows
high-res craft editing, compliance editing and
screening, promo production and non-linear
content packaging to be managed side-by-
side. This integration brings Adobe Premiere Pro
CC into the heart of Tedial’s Media IT solutions.
We have also continued to embrace
global industry trends with support for
media initiatives such as the UK Digital
Production Partnership DPP.
Our expansion in 2014 has seen the
company grow to 100 staff in Europe, Middle
East and the US. In Q1 we opened our new
offi ce in Dubai’s Media City, managed by
Razik Zaghlouli, regional sales manager MEA.
The offi ce complements Tedial’s existing
support services in the region. We also recently
expanded our North American operation
with the appointment of Ben Higley Shaver as
manager of pre-sales engineering and support.
Led by highly respected broadcast software
executive Jay Batista, Tedial’s North American
operation is based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
With over 50 high-profi le reference sites
globally including some of the largest and
most complex MAM systems in the industry,
our customers use different confi gurations of
our core Tarsys, MPM, Ficus and AST software
modules in conjunction with their own
third-party encoding, storage, editing and
transcoding systems.
in association with
Based on Tedial’s previous partnership in
2011 with FORTA (Federation of Spanish
Regional Television Channels national
news exchange), where it provided multi-site
media management and content exchange for
Spain’s 12 regional broadcasters, the company
decided to look north.
Nordvision, a group of fi ve northern European
broadcasters that comprises DR (Denmark),
NRK (Norway), SVT (Sweden), YLE (Finland) and
RUV (Iceland), selected Tedial’s technology for
a major project that enables multi-tenant
co-operation for Nordvision’s Nordif-3 network.
The Nordvision partners co-operate to
strengthen public service broadcasting in the
Nordic region based on the principle:
“what we have, we share”.
The fi ve Nordic public service broadcasters now
operate a content exchange platform to share
media and metadata using their own local MAM
systems. Led by highly respected Norwegian
public service broadcaster NRK and managed
by Tedial’s technology delivery partner
Mediateket, the solution rapidly and securely
shares daily news items for 17 television channels,
with the broadcasters collectively generating
more than 4,000 long-form programmes every
year. HD and SD material contributed by any of
the broadcasters is searchable and selectable
via the cloud for rapid co-operation.
NRK co-ordinated requirements amongst the
group’s wide range of creative, operational
and technical stakeholders. Mediateket led the
multi-site workfl ow design, helping to specify the
appropriate operational practices, metadata
translation and preservation processes, to allow
the Nordvision members to work together more
effi ciently. Day to day, NRK hosts the services
and manages on-going support for the Nordif-3
platform in Oslo.
Sharing content using cloud connectivityForming the heart of the Nordif-3 project is
Tedial’s Media Exchange Platform (MEP), which
provides the broadcasters in the group with a
secure multi-MAM content exchange platform
to share media, metadata and attachments.
MEP enables fast and secure access over
IP and provides automated workfl ows that
present and package content, delivering to
the broadcaster’s MAM system in the format
required. This removes the unnecessary
complexity that is now a reality for many
organisations working at many desktops and
with multiple departments. MEP maximises
the re-use and minimises the re-working of
material, allowing large media assets to be
moved effi ciently, making use of centralised
management capability without the need for
extensive IT support.
MEP also provides Nordif-3 with unique global
monitoring of these exchange processes using
live dashboards and business reports that allow
the broadcasters to monitor the exchange of
shared media automatically.
Material contributed by the individual
broadcasters is searchable and selectable via
the cloud for subsequent delivery to the other
members in the group.
In operation, the media exchange processes
using Nordif-3 can be split into two categories:
‘acquisition’, and ‘select and deliver’.
Programmes are selected locally in each
broadcaster’s own MAM system and the essence
fi les, metadata (XML) and associated materials
are delivered to the Tedial Nordif-3 platform
in the broadcaster’s native format (SD: IMX30,
IMX50; HD: XDCam at 50Mbps; and DNX at 120).
On arrival, fi les sent to Nordif-3 are subject
to a simple integrity check and, if required,
associated materials and metadata are
attached to the new assets. The Nordif-3 system
then automatically generates a browse version
and key frames for each contribution. When a
broadcaster in the group wishes to select and
deliver content, they simply search, browse and
select assets using Tedial’s MAM web interface.
Upon selection, assets are transferred to the
receiving broadcaster using MEP.
The futureThe effective working relationship between
Tedial, Mediateket and Nordvision partners,
and particularly NRK, has resulted in a
smooth running project that has lived up to
expectations. Furthermore, Tedial, NRK and the
rest of the partners share the vision that using
Nordif-3 for easy media exchange continues
their long-term benefi cial relationship where
legacy issues in previous platforms can be
solved. The Nordic countries can cost effectively
share more programming and strengthen their
media partnerships.
Value added partners are crucial to help
develop new media services and platforms. As
well as Mediateket in Europe, Tedial has recently
announced partnerships with highly respected
systems integrators Magna Systems and
Engineering in APAC and Media Guru in India.
www.tedial.com
MAM Supplementiv TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com December 2014
Multi-tenant media exchange using the cloud
For this supplement’s case study, we look at Tedial’s work with the Nordvision group of public service broadcasters; a major project to enable multi-tenant co-operation for Nordvision’s Nordif-3 network
The Nordvision group of broadcasters
in association with
MAM Supplementvi TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com December 2014
The industry is in the throes of change, with the effects of digitisation reaching every corner of the marketplace. What
have been the most signifi cant changes you’ve seen from an MAM perspective? The industry has moved from a video-based
environment to a fi le-based environment;
and when we talk about fi les, we talk about
standard IT. From the beginning, we’ve been
an IT company with an IT heritage. When
it comes to broadcast, we’re applying IT
technology to the broadcast industry;
moving and delivering media fi les.
Broadcast is an IT-standard sector, and software
has become very important: it is, if you like, the
intelligence of the industry. The expertise and
knowledge is in software and in IT-standard
strategies that are applied in very specifi c
workfl ows. In this case, and especially for MAM
systems where it’s all about software, it’s very
important to apply all of the standards in the
digital asset management industry. It’s about
the mixture of the two worlds: very specifi c
expertise in video formats and supporting fi les
that are increasingly delivered in high resolution
(UHD, 4K, etc), whilst optimising for IT standards
like BPM workfl ows, so we don’t have to
reinvent the wheel – if in the IT world there
are people with expertise in optimising for this,
then why not apply that expertise and
technology in this industry.
Tedial HQ in Malaga, Spain
“We can now say that this is an IT industry. The future of the TV business
will be IP fi les and IT technology.”
Change management The management of digital media assets has arguably never been more important, with a greater volume of fi les having to be managed as the industry moves almost fully away from the days of analogue to a fi le-based present, and future. To discuss the recent changes in the MAM environment, TVBEurope sat down with Esther Mesas, chief sales and marketing offi cer at Tedial
in association with
TVBEurope viiDecember 2014 www.tvbeurope.com
MAM Supplement
Over the last ten years we have seen this
evolution play out to the degree that we can
now say that this is an IT industry. The future of the
TV business will be IP fi les and IT technology.
And that future scenario only increases the importance of MAM systems for all entities in this sectorIt does, because MAM isn’t only about managing
fi les and archiving them, it’s also an integrator.
MAM connects the delivery of fi les from ingest
to playout and it’s also the software that
automates all of the media workfl ows,
integrating the different components and
making them compatible.
It’s the core of a broadcaster’s business: the
companies organise their media through the
MAM software. Especially now with fi le delivery,
the non-linear playout is becoming more
important – if you need to deliver a signifi cant
amount of fi les, you need to automate that
process. However, some broadcast companies
still perform part of this job manually, so there is
still work to do.
Do you think that there was a resistance to change among the traditional broadcasters, perhaps a fear of digital progression? It has been a very niche market, and I think
companies worry that they will lose their niche
expertise, or that it will become less relevant in a
digital world. The content producers know that
it is a very specifi c world, but the technology
behind all of this will be a standard. I think that
linear broadcasting will only remain for live
events and the rest will be on demand.
What are the challenges and pressures of 4K and UHD on MAM systems? The challenges are about supporting the format,
being able to transcode, store and archive, but
it’s also about optimising the bandwidth of the
network so that you optimise every transfer of the
fi le. As the industry moves to greater production
of 4K and UHD, the MAM and storage aspects of
the industry need to support this.
Are you seeing more instances of companies requiring outsourced archiving and asset management facilities as the libraries they manage continue to grow? More often, you do see that customers don’t
want to store their content on their premises
as it requires more space, and brings with it an
infrastructure that needs to be maintained by
an IT team; it’s not their core business and, aside
from certain companies and public institutions
who require control for heritage purposes, it’s
not an investment that many companies want
to make. They need the security that their assets
are safe and are available when they need
them, but increasingly, companies are looking to
externalise this practice.
I think that the same will happen with software,
and I think that software as a service will become
a real alternative. Software is a challenge
because it’s not a physical product but a virtual
one; why invest in a product that needs to
evolve? As a service, you pay for what you are
consuming and are guaranteed the evolution
of updates that comes with all software, rather
than having to buy new iterations of products.
This allows companies to focus on their business,
free of distraction from having to manage IT
teams, and other
matters that fall
outside of their core
competencies.
Of your own core competencies, you point to the fact that you’re an IT company built specifi cally to assist broadcast and media companies with MAM and IT media challenges – how is that mix of expertise represented in the company? As an IT company
that specialises
in broadcast, 80
per cent of our
employees are IT
engineers and we
work with consultants
who specialise
in broadcast
workfl ows. It’s that
mixture of expertise
that allows us to build
broadcast solutions
– but with IT standard
technologies. One of our founders was from
the broadcast sector, the other an academic
at the University of Malaga (we still collaborate
with the University on R&D projects), so that
mix is an inherent part of the company. The
company was founded in 2001, with a dual
footprint in Europe and Latin America, but with
an international focus. We’re headquartered
in Malaga, Spain, and have offi ces in London,
Dubai, the US, Latin America and we also
operate in Asia Pacifi c. We’ve always been
involved in big projects and that has required our
focus to be global.
Finally, how has the mix of companies you service changed as media has become more pervasive in all business sectors? The majority of our demand comes from the
broadcast industry, but we also work in the
government and corporate sectors where some
of the larger entities have a signifi cant amount
of media that they need to manage – even if it’s
not their main business. In the digital age, media
has become a commodity for everyone.
“In the digital age, media has become a commodity for everyone.”
in association with