www.tvbeurope.com

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