The Digital Production Partnership (DPP) is a wonderful thing. Not only has it provided the means of creating standards and guidelines for the implementation of common interchange formats, it has also helped the whole UK broadcast industry to come together: So, in the UK the DPP has invested a great amount of time and effort in establishing…
Quality Control (QC) has always been close to our hearts. Media files must always be fit for purpose – when they are not they quickly become toxic and can be highly destructive within any file-based workflow: The EBU shares our point of view- QC is key. “Broadcasters moving to file-based production facilities have to consider how to use…
Not for the first time, I’m guilty of using the term revolutionary in association with the Digital Production Partnership (DPP). No, I have not been reading too many subversive texts – it is the simple truth that this UK-based initiative leads the world in supporting the widespread adoption of digital file-based workflows: It has the potential…
Recently, we staged a webinar in partnership with ATG Broadcast which focussed on the Digital Production Partnership (DPP) file standards. We had a number of contributors giving the perspectives of a service provider, a media facility and a broadcaster. The broadcaster’s perspective was provided by Shane Tucker from UK broadcaster, Channel 4. The broadcaster does not produce…
As previously discussed on this blog, DPP standards webinar threw up some fascinating perspectives on this area of file-based workflow standardization. Another interesting perspective came from Chiswick-based international media facility, TVT, which was represented on the webinar by its managing director, Kim Thesiger: TVT can claim to be one of the first (even perhaps the first) European…
So many of you came to us to talk about captions during NAB. Based on our conversations, it’s clear that captions remain a huge source of frustration and worry. Broadcast workflows are more complex than ever. Add captions to the mix, and the complexity takes on a new dimension: Now, what you don’t want to do, is carry on…
Why can’t we standardize our XML schemas? It should be easy – right? After all, we’ve been exchanging content between facilities for decades and we write the same stuff on bits of paper regardless of who’s receiving it. Don’t we? We’re Consistent – Right? It seems the answer is “Not really”. One of the hidden…
If integrating captions in your workflow is making you reach for the Aspirin, then here are a few tips that might alleviate the pain: 1. Follow the Law At the end of 2012 the FCC passed the 21st Century Communications Act. According to the new regulation, all video content that is broadcast on television in…
I am continually amazed at how, even cost conscious, companies create delivery specifications. When it’s done correctly, a good delivery specification reduces costs for the business, improves interoperability, increases reliability, reduces failure rates and might even boost staff morale because things just work better. It shouldn’t really be a surprise. A delivery specification is essentially…
In the light of the recent FCC regulations, captioning for post houses has become more of a pain than ever. It is something you have to do because by law, your clients, who own the copyright to the material, have to do it: It’s Gonna Get Harder… It was already enough of a challenge when you…
It was the poet Tennyson who wrote about “brawling courts and dusty purlieus of the law”. Which may seem like an unlikely point to start a technical blog, but bear with me: 21st Century Communications and Video c Act Broadcasting has always been regulated by law, and as technology and society have moved on, so…
July 1936 Fred Perry was winning Wimbledon and the NBC was conducting programming tests in High definition (225 of RCA’s licensees saw programming on 22 centimeter screens, 343 lines per picture, 30 pictures per second): 77 years later and another British tennis player wins Wimbledon and the event pulls in the biggest TV audience in…
I can imagine the scene now. I’m sitting on a chair in the forest many years in the future with my grandchildren trying to set fire to things or blow things up (the way they do). I will have just finished watching the director’s cut of “Le magasin des suicides” on my new super-duper 16K…
I bring good news to all! The FCC has recently issued an order stating that baby video monitors are exempt from having to decode closed captions! Phew, that is going to make all the difference in the world for the media industry: As you will know if you are an avid reader of this blog, the FCC in…
The overriding issue in the development of file-based workflows is the meeting of the worlds of broadcast and IT technology head on. This issue has been discussed in magazines and online for many years. Rather smugly, it has been suggested by many that IT technology is the poor relation compared with the complexity of the…
If you read my last post on the evils of interlace, you’ll know how strongly I feel about the topic. Just like maggot therapy went out of fashion with the advent of antibiotics, interlace is on its way out with the arrival of HEVC: Hold on a second, I hear you say, if interlace is so bad,…
“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. It is reassuring when you see that what you have been advising customers for years is supported by a leading broadcast industry body…
Readers of this blog will be aware of its regular focus on the Digital Production Partnership or DPP as it is more commonly known. When terminology such as ‘revolutionary’ and ‘a future broadcast industry cornerstone’ are used to describe a concept it is normally a good indication that all that glitters is not necessarily gold: However, this is…
Next week, in a corner of the Bayerischer Rundfunk campus in Munich, Germany, likely without much fanfare, something fairly monumental will take place – the IRT MXF PlugFest. Now in its ninth year, this event brings together vendors in the media and entertainment industry to facilitate MXF interoperability tests. Following each event, the IRT (Institute für Rundfunktechnik)…
Last week, the infamous Consumer Electronics Show (better known as CES) took place in Las Vegas. While it’s not an event that many vendors like ourselves in the media industry attend, it is a show that we watch carefully – acknowledging that our customers’ business is consumer-led, and that innovation in consumer electronics will often…
The Digital Production Partnership (DPP) is a wonderful thing. Not only has it provided the means of creating standards and guidelines for the implementation of common interchange formats, it has also helped the whole UK broadcast industry to come together: So, in the UK the DPP has invested a great amount of time and effort in establishing…
Quality Control (QC) has always been close to our hearts. Media files must always be fit for purpose – when they are not they quickly become toxic and can be highly destructive within any file-based workflow: The EBU shares our point of view- QC is key. “Broadcasters moving to file-based production facilities have to consider how to use…
Not for the first time, I’m guilty of using the term revolutionary in association with the Digital Production Partnership (DPP). No, I have not been reading too many subversive texts – it is the simple truth that this UK-based initiative leads the world in supporting the widespread adoption of digital file-based workflows: It has the potential…
Recently, we staged a webinar in partnership with ATG Broadcast which focussed on the Digital Production Partnership (DPP) file standards. We had a number of contributors giving the perspectives of a service provider, a media facility and a broadcaster. The broadcaster’s perspective was provided by Shane Tucker from UK broadcaster, Channel 4. The broadcaster does not produce…
As previously discussed on this blog, DPP standards webinar threw up some fascinating perspectives on this area of file-based workflow standardization. Another interesting perspective came from Chiswick-based international media facility, TVT, which was represented on the webinar by its managing director, Kim Thesiger: TVT can claim to be one of the first (even perhaps the first) European…
So many of you came to us to talk about captions during NAB. Based on our conversations, it’s clear that captions remain a huge source of frustration and worry. Broadcast workflows are more complex than ever. Add captions to the mix, and the complexity takes on a new dimension: Now, what you don’t want to do, is carry on…
Why can’t we standardize our XML schemas? It should be easy – right? After all, we’ve been exchanging content between facilities for decades and we write the same stuff on bits of paper regardless of who’s receiving it. Don’t we? We’re Consistent – Right? It seems the answer is “Not really”. One of the hidden…
If integrating captions in your workflow is making you reach for the Aspirin, then here are a few tips that might alleviate the pain: 1. Follow the Law At the end of 2012 the FCC passed the 21st Century Communications Act. According to the new regulation, all video content that is broadcast on television in…
I am continually amazed at how, even cost conscious, companies create delivery specifications. When it’s done correctly, a good delivery specification reduces costs for the business, improves interoperability, increases reliability, reduces failure rates and might even boost staff morale because things just work better. It shouldn’t really be a surprise. A delivery specification is essentially…
In the light of the recent FCC regulations, captioning for post houses has become more of a pain than ever. It is something you have to do because by law, your clients, who own the copyright to the material, have to do it: It’s Gonna Get Harder… It was already enough of a challenge when you…
It was the poet Tennyson who wrote about “brawling courts and dusty purlieus of the law”. Which may seem like an unlikely point to start a technical blog, but bear with me: 21st Century Communications and Video c Act Broadcasting has always been regulated by law, and as technology and society have moved on, so…
July 1936 Fred Perry was winning Wimbledon and the NBC was conducting programming tests in High definition (225 of RCA’s licensees saw programming on 22 centimeter screens, 343 lines per picture, 30 pictures per second): 77 years later and another British tennis player wins Wimbledon and the event pulls in the biggest TV audience in…
I can imagine the scene now. I’m sitting on a chair in the forest many years in the future with my grandchildren trying to set fire to things or blow things up (the way they do). I will have just finished watching the director’s cut of “Le magasin des suicides” on my new super-duper 16K…
I bring good news to all! The FCC has recently issued an order stating that baby video monitors are exempt from having to decode closed captions! Phew, that is going to make all the difference in the world for the media industry: As you will know if you are an avid reader of this blog, the FCC in…
The overriding issue in the development of file-based workflows is the meeting of the worlds of broadcast and IT technology head on. This issue has been discussed in magazines and online for many years. Rather smugly, it has been suggested by many that IT technology is the poor relation compared with the complexity of the…
If you read my last post on the evils of interlace, you’ll know how strongly I feel about the topic. Just like maggot therapy went out of fashion with the advent of antibiotics, interlace is on its way out with the arrival of HEVC: Hold on a second, I hear you say, if interlace is so bad,…
“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. It is reassuring when you see that what you have been advising customers for years is supported by a leading broadcast industry body…
Readers of this blog will be aware of its regular focus on the Digital Production Partnership or DPP as it is more commonly known. When terminology such as ‘revolutionary’ and ‘a future broadcast industry cornerstone’ are used to describe a concept it is normally a good indication that all that glitters is not necessarily gold: However, this is…
Next week, in a corner of the Bayerischer Rundfunk campus in Munich, Germany, likely without much fanfare, something fairly monumental will take place – the IRT MXF PlugFest. Now in its ninth year, this event brings together vendors in the media and entertainment industry to facilitate MXF interoperability tests. Following each event, the IRT (Institute für Rundfunktechnik)…
Last week, the infamous Consumer Electronics Show (better known as CES) took place in Las Vegas. While it’s not an event that many vendors like ourselves in the media industry attend, it is a show that we watch carefully – acknowledging that our customers’ business is consumer-led, and that innovation in consumer electronics will often…
