3. The Digital Media Factory
1 B k
Background
d
2 Objectives and principles
3 Architecture
4 P
Program and projects
d j t
5 Experience
6 Results and future steps
4. Background
VRT has adapted its organisation to a new enterprise strategy, which
will help it being successful in the context of
p g
– increased competitive pressure
– fast evolving technology, both on producer and consumer sides
– changing consumer behaviour
– increased and new opportunities (new media, HD, …)
– a changing market environment
VRT is aligning its media production on the corporate strategy, implying
– increased pressure on cost
– reduced production times
p
– more repurposing of content
– integrated and cross-medial production
The
Th news department is a forerunner in these trends.
d t ti f i th t d
5. Needs and requirements
In order to reach its objectives, VRT needs new digital
p
production methods.
Within radio and television production, the media are
already digital…
– With the advantages of higher quality, enhanced possibilities.
But storage, transport and copying of content is essentially
like it was in the analogue world
world.
– Physical handling and transport of tapes
We need a fully integrated file-based workflow.
Technology innovation makes this possible.
6. The Digital Media Factory
1 B k
Background
d
2 Objectives and principles
3 Architecture
4 P
Program and projects
d j t
5 Experience
6 Results and future steps
7. DMF objectives
Moving from tapes, CD’s, cassettes to files stored and conserved on a
central system.
y
At the same time supporting all existing craft work processes.
Easier creation, maintenance and communication of essence-related
metadata throughout the production process.
t d t th h t th d ti
Introducing new, more efficient or less time consuming workflows.
Supporting easy repurposing reuse and distribution of content across
repurposing,
media (radio, television, online).
Cost efficient and future-proof technology investment
– Move to standardized technology where possible (e.g. file servers,
network)
8. Guiding principles
Full file based production from start to finish.
( g )
– Raw material starts its life as a file (e.g. in a file based camera)
– Or, it is ingested and converted to a file as the very first step (in
case of reuse of legacy tape based archive material)
Support for cross-medial reuse and repurposing throughout
cross medial
all production stages.
Fully integrated workflow
workflow.
– Automated transfer of essence and metadata through all
production steps
– F ll t h l
Full technology support f th production workflow
t for the d ti kfl
9. Scope of the DMF
Ingest
– Automated feed ingest
– Tape ingest
– g y p g
Legacy archive tape mass ingest
– File-based camera ingest
Newsroom computer system
Media asset management
– Central
C t l media asset management
di t t
– Integration of legacy archive management system
Editing
– Craft audio editing
– C f video editing
Craft id di i
– News editing for internet and new media publication
Play-out
– Radio play-out with automation
– Tv play-out with automation and planning system integration
– Internet publishing
Essence and meta-data integration
Supporting infrastructure
– Network and large-scale file servers
10. The Digital Media Factory
1 B k
Background
d
2 Objectives and principles
3 Architecture
4 P
Program and projects
d j t
5 Experience
6 Results and future steps
11. Architecture principles
The DMF consists of a central system for media storage
and media asset management, and a number of craft work
centres.
centres
Craft work centres and central media management are
“best of breed”.
– No single vendor shopping
– Best tool for the job
W k centres and central media management are loosely
Work t d t l di t l l
integrated and can operate autonomously.
– Halt propagation of technical incidents
– Emergency workflows available
Integration is key.
– W want a media f t
We t di factory, not just a bunch of tools.
tj t b h ft l
12. The news production environment: overview
Newsroom computer system
Video edit Online edit Audio edit
Central storage and asset management
Archive management
Archived Search in archive management and make available
material from / through central asset management
Finished After editing, put back in central asset management
for further processing or for other users / usage
material
Always enters both systems, tagged with metadata
Raw material to facilitate retrieval
14. Architecture: video ingest
VTR and feed ingest
with scheduling
automation
Double ingest (Avid and
central MAM))
Bulk ingest facility for
legacy news archive P2 file based camera file
ingest. ingest
15. Architecture
Central MAM and
storage infrastructure
16. Central storage architecture
Video browse High-res material
Cluster for mass-
material (news for news
storage (archive) Target 50 streams
production,
Target 200 streams production (incl.
archive) ) feeds).
Supernet II
GMII
Cluster
Audio library
TSM Cluster TSM Cluster TSM Cluster TSM
5x4CPU 2x2CPU 3x2CPU 1x2CPU 4x4CPU 1x2CPU 3x2CPU 2x2CPU
Tape robot:
• near line archive
• + reserve copy
on tape (vaulting) SAN SAN SAN SAN
switch switch switch switch
Tape
T SATA single Tape
T SATA mirror FC mirror Tape
T FC mirror
i Tape
T
165 TB 40 TB 22,5 TB FC mirror
robot robot robot 62,5 TB SATA mirror robot
Work Audio Browse SATA single
News Feeds
Backup robot Other essence
News archive
controlled by TSM Backup robot Staging contains
controlled by TSM
y all architectural
BUBE MCBE MCRT Staging
Business as usual Best Effort Mission Critical Best Effort components (but
Mission Critical Real Time
scaled down)
18. ESB-based integration
Enterprise Service Bus
Business Process
Mediation
M di ti
App A ASBO GBO GBO ASBO App B
or process
mediation mediation
GBO = Generic Business Object
ASBO = Application Specific Business Object
Mediation = transformation, routing, validation and processing of messages
P/Meta is used as the central data model
21. Play-out and end control
Één
één PV/BU-Canvas
Canvas
Canvas PV/BU.-één
Thema 1-2 Thema 3-4
DDC1 DDC2
EVS1a EVS2a
Devices 2330 2330 Devices
DBS1 DBS2 GPI
Network
EVS1a EVS2a
RS422
GUARD/MAIN serverports GUARD VNM GUARD/MAIN serverports
GUARD GUARD MediaDirector GUARD
MAIN MAIN MediaDirectors
A i i MAIN
MAIN
GMII
EXT.
EXT EXT.
MXF Feed
Feed MXF
SD/HD-Routing
S / i
Channel 1 Thematics Channel 2
23. The Digital Media Factory
1 B k
Background
d
2 Objectives and principles
3 Architecture
4 P
Program and projects
d j t
5 Experience
6 Results and future steps
24. Program and projects organisation
One build program
– Synchronised with business organisation change program
– Bundling the build projects
– Creating a framework for the build projects with program-wide
activities
– Supplier management
– Support organisation
– Architecture board
– Integrated planning, budget management, risk management
– Business process design and translation to technical
specification
Projects
– One project per work centre
– C t l MAM i t
Central MAM, integration, central storage i f t t
ti t l t infrastructure
25. The Digital Media Factory
1 B k
Background
d
2 Objectives and principles
3 Architecture
4 P
Program and projects
d j t
5 Experience
6 Results and future steps
26. Experience: MXF
Some maturity problems remain.
MXF is a very (too ?) broad standard allowing many combinations and
standard,
flavours.
Interoperability on essence level not guaranteed by using MXF.
MXF is necessary, but not sufficient for essence interoperability.
Specific care has to be taken to specify/ensure support for the exact
flavour used
used.
Even with the flavour specified, implementations were in many cases
not error-free.
At least one expert with a high level of MXF specialised knowledge is
needed.
Vendors are willing to improve their implementations
implementations.
27. Experience: integration
The integration platform is the key to obtaining a well-
p
performing factory, allowing to align the components and
g y, g g p
their use on the business process.
A common data model is necessary.
The design phase of the integrations is time consuming,
but the development cycle is relatively short.
The i t
Th integration architecture should provide components
ti hit t h ld id t
isolating weaknesses and immaturities in craft tool
implementations.
Future DMF extensions will profit strongly from the
integration platform.
28. Experience: storage and networking
Building storage and the supporting network is far from
trivial.
trivial
Demands on file storage capacity, guaranteed bandwidth
and reliability are high
y g
– Technologically within reach of standard (IT-) components.
– But they exceed the typical experience of IT infrastructure build
people.
people
– Therefore, careful design and test is necessary, as well as
challenging “easy” assumptions.
Storage and networking are projects in their own right.
29. Experience: user requirements
User requirements
– are unclear in the beginning
– tend to shift as understanding increases.
A good dialogue and cooperation with users is essential
essential.
– Give clear feedback on what technology can and can’t do.
– Organise demo sessions as early as possible.
– Involve users in testing.
30. Experience: effort and complexity
A very high level of effort and involvement from the
technology department is necessary over a p
gy p y prolonged
g
period of time.
– Other investments are delayed due to lack of people or funding.
– This takes its toll on people
people.
Complexity is inevitable, and needs to be managed.
– Regular p j
g project team meetings
g
– Architecture board
During the final phases of the project, the support
department is h
d t t i heavily l d d
il loaded
– High training effort over a short time period.
– Intake of the new tools and technology.
– Maintaining the old systems until phase-out.
31. The Digital Media Factory
1 B k
Background
d
2 Objectives and principles
3 Architecture
4 P
Program and projects
d j t
5 Experience
6 Results and future steps
32. Results and future steps
Since June 25, 2007 news production at VRT is
– Fully file based
file-based
– Cross-medial
– Fully integrated
Future:
– Extending the platform for general program production (i.e. fiction, studio
productions, …)
– C
Creating mass i
i ingest f ili i and easier fil b
facilities d i file-based exchange with
d h ih
external tools
– Further enhancing integrations:
– planning and editing t l
l i d diti tools.
– connecting other work centres (e.g. graphics), other media
management tools (e.g. photo management).
– supporting a broader set of repurposing and publication facilities
facilities.
