How To Write A Paper On The Integrated Media Framework

Transcription

1 The Integrated

2 The Integrated Media production and distribution businesses are working in an environment of radical change. To meet the challenge of this change, a new technology and business framework is evolving, called the Integrated. The Integrated has the following key characteristics: It enhances business agility through a modular and open approach focused on new workflows and business models that can be quickly deployed and adapted at low risk It provides the business with total visibility into its media assets and their value, allowing those assets to be easily repurposed and monetized It integrates all of the ingest, production, archive and distribution operations of the enterprise through standards based web services, maximizing efficiency and collaboration The business landscape The evolution of technology and its impact on business models is forcing the broadcast industry to evolve as dramatically as it did when television displaced radio. The elements of this change include: Distribution of media in a wide array of formats and methods from traditional outlets to online and social media channels Sourcing from independent producers, established professionals and even citizen journalists in all corners of the globe Utilization of a wide range of professional and consumer tools Re-organization around new revenue models (while the opportunity here seems attractive, it has thus far remained elusive) This paper will describe some of the key challenges faced by media enterprises today and how the Integrated provides solutions to these challenges. 2

3 The Integrated Changes in workflow and media The underlying workflow from idea creation to enduser consumption has remained similar since the early days of television. While some workflow elements have grown to be more efficient, non-linear, and digital, the process has essentially remained largely linear. A concept is created, footage shot, video and audio edited, and a deliverable master sent to a broadcast center for on-air playback. This had been monetized by advertising, and with cable, subscription revenue. Today, the idea creation process begins with multiple distribution opportunities already in mind. Since a concept is no longer limited to the realm of the professional producer; the producer is no longer the gatekeeper of content creation. Workflow has evolved from a linear process of hand-offs to a collaborative process that happens in parallel. Re-purposing for multiple outlets has moved from an afterthought to something central to the production. Processes such as version control and media relationship tracking are now centralized. This presents additional coordination challenges when different pieces of multi-platform content must be tightly integrated to provide consumers with a rich media experience. As the workflow has changed, so have the media formats. Production pipelines that used to be architected around a single media format must now handle a proliferation of formats as well as manage the relationships between them. These range from professional quality 2K digital film cameras to consumer grade 2 Mega-pixel mobile phone cameras. Content may be shot by professionals, amateurs, freelancers, or produced from archival materials by producers and content creators that are geographically dispersed. While the tools used to create content have become increasingly accessible, dealing with these numerous formats and managing the rights associated with each piece of media has become increasingly difficult. Changes in distribution Additional distribution channels represent additional revenue as well as additional complexity and cost. Preparing material for distribution on multiple platforms including broadcast, mobile, web, social media, Blu-ray disc and IP requires specialist tools and operators for each platform. This represents a significant financial challenge. Moreover, the monetization opportunity of each of these different delivery methods varies as audiences splinter and time is divided between platforms. Advertising revenue alone is not enough to support all of these distribution outlets, thus a massive reorientation of the broadcast enterprise is necessary. The Integrated What is it? The Integrated is a technology and business process framework, designed by Avid, and supported by distributed workflows and open web services. Some of its central characteristics include: Integrated media operations from acquisition and post-production to archive and distribution, enabling collaboration across the extended enterprise and driving operational efficiency and transparency. Complete visibility into the organization s media assets and the assigned value of that media through an open media catalog. Modular, open architecture that allows the enterprise to respond quickly to new opportunities with a high level of business agility. 3

4 The Integrated This framework has a number of central elements: An open media catalog This is the central repository of all metadata about assets, and a critical enterprise component. * It is open, as it houses all asset metadata graphics, audio, video and other assets - and cannot be confined to a single manufacturer s proprietary data format; today s enterprises include tools from a wide variety of manufacturers and all must fit into the framework. * It has a flexible data model, customizable to the needs of every enterprise. * It has a rich data model that maintains the relationship between assets, the layers of metadata on each asset, and the time-based relationships between metadata and media. A rich media repository This is the repository of the assets themselves. * It can house assets from all operations. * It can house all types of rich media. * It may leverage a tiered storage model that provides multiple layers of cost/performance characteristics from deep archive to real-time online storage. Common media exchange This is a distributed rather than monolithic system. It includes engines for rapid media exchange using common protocols within or across platform components. Integrated tools These provide the means by which users engage to perform tasks such as ingest management, logging, cataloging, searching, shot-listing, rights verification, editing, finishing, review and approval and playout management. For efficient collaborative operation, these tools are all integrated into the framework. Workflow management Since the framework serves a business purpose, it must provide the capabilities to build workflows customized to specific business needs. These workflows should be highly flexible, providing seamless collaboration between users and systems as well as transparency to operations managers on status. Standardized and open services The Integrated will not be a single monolithic solution built around products from a single manufacturer. Instead, it is a flexible framework based on a Service Oriented Architecture that allows multiple vendors to integrate components through a standards based matrix that is constantly evolving to meet emerging business needs. Vibrant third party ecosystem A Service Oriented Architecture makes this possible by allowing any vendor to create and publish web services based on a universal standardized protocol that allows systems to publish their capabilities and then get plugged in dynamically over time as requirements evolve. Scalable hybrid deployment model The Integrated will be able to deliver its services either locally through local network connected clients, or through the cloud. With production and distribution becoming increasingly detached from a single physical location, both producers and consumers of content want to connect and engage from wherever they are, whether in the facility, in their home, or on another continent. The future enterprise will deliver many of its services through the cloud, so anyone can participate from anywhere, at any time. 4

5 The Integrated The result of all the above is the delivery of business applications, from content creation, rights management, archive, and distribution, to whatever application broadcasters are looking for. The value of the Integrated framework is that it can deliver these applications in an agile manner, integrating all the creative capacity of the enterprise into an efficient whole. The Integrated in practice Impact on news Since news happens 24 hours a day, consumer expectations for up-to-the-minute coverage have created fierce competition among news organizations to be the first to break and update stories. This has shifted the focus from scheduled television newscasts to a web-led strategy. As a result, new sources have been introduced into the process, from search engines, news aggregators, and citizen journalists to social networking. As technology evolves, new delivery channels and video formats will be necessary, requiring news organizations to adapt quickly to new technology and deploy it without having to continually rebuild their facilities. The Integrated helps news organizations in several ways: Integration of broadcast news and web organizations. News organizations cannot afford the luxury of separate operations for broadcast and web. An integrated framework provides a single setting for news acquisition, story development, story repurposing, and rapid collaboration between all staff. Geographical integration. Larger organizations have multiple production teams in different cities and countries. A unified framework provides efficiency and responsiveness by enabling task distribution and story sharing across the whole organization. Archive repurposing. News gathering is an expensive process. An effectively managed and quickly retrievable archive enables stories to be created and enriched using assets from the archive, reducing overall program costs. New web outlets in particular can quickly assemble rich background material on a story to drive traffic and improve audience retention. 5

6 The Integrated Impact on sports The explosion of cable sports channels and impact of major events like The Super Bowl and The World Cup have made sports a major driver of broadcast revenue and growth. The enthusiasm of the fan base and its insatiable appetite for content on their sport, team, and players offers significant incremental revenue opportunities. In addition to traditional repurposing of library content, broadcasters are unveiling new models such as highlights factories where a series of sports events are covered simultaneously and made available through live and on-demand web streaming. Sports content owners possess archives of valuable assets with enormous monetization potential. The Integrated framework can enable them to easily identify and assess the value of these assets, integrate operations to enable different groups to monetize this content, and provide an agile setting to prototype and deliver new business models to make this monetization a reality. Impact on content owners In an environment where content is king, monetization of every possible channel is critical to business success. Content creators and owners are assessing how they can not only find their unique content niche, but effectively exploit it. To do this, they first need visibility into their assets and systems to quickly and easily repurpose those assets. Once the asset is in the right format, content needs to be associated with the right metadata to enable end-users to effectively locate their content. The most appropriate metadata is either a subset or new set of metadata that is independent of the metadata generated in the content creation process. The ability to publish content through multiple channels simultaneously in the right format, with the right metadata, is the primary value an Integrated offers content owners, allowing them to meet new business opportunities as they arise with minimal effort and incremental cost. Impact on post facilities If content is king, then what is the role of post facilities? How do they play in this new environment? The answer is to provide services that support the content owner s need to develop and monetize their assets. Many content owners choose to focus on content production rather than a comprehensive setting for storage, post-production, archive and distribution. Post facilities with many additional services in content management can now use the same Integrated framework to deliver these services. Critical to this process is the decoupling of the physical setting and the user. No longer do clients need to come into the post facility to do their work. Cloud based services will allow post facilities to not only deliver their services to customers anywhere, but engage the best talent to post-produce the content independent of where it is located. 6

7 The Integrated Impact on educators The benefits of the Integrated are not confined to the commercial world. Educational institutions face significant challenges in managing a media framework. They need to deliver a consistent curriculum to a high volume of students, weaving in multi-media elements in a way that does not overwhelm them with technical and administrative overhead. They need to provide teaching staff with the means to easily provide video materials, view student work, and generate feedback. In some cases curriculum must be delivered through the cloud to students who are not physically on the campus. An Integrated framework enables educational institutions to meet student expectations for modern learning by incorporating more media elements into the curriculum and delivering materials in a wider range of formats. Impact on government Government agencies are receiving and creating ever increasing amounts of video and multi-media content for a range of applications. While content may be delivered to the agency in many different forms and formats, it needs to be made quickly available to the appropriate authorized individuals. In addition, the value of the content and associated metadata may vary in value to the agency. The only way to determine this is to have total visibility into these media assets. If a piece of content needs to be made available to those outside the agency, the agency needs a secured and streamlined way of getting it out. The primary benefit of the Integrated is that it provides government agencies with open interfaces which allow legacy or interagency applications to interface securely with the platform and bridge those vital systems with a flexible media framework. This modular and open approach maximizes agency agility by giving it the ability to quickly deploy new workflows at low risk. Conclusion Broadcasters, post facilities, content owners, content creators, government agencies, and educational institutions are all asking the same questions. How do I retool my facilities, my technology, my workflow, and my business model to meet new and future challenges? In an environment of profound change, the answer no longer lies in a single product from a single company. The answer lies in the creation of an Integrated that provides the ability to get a clear picture of what assets are available, what rights are associated with each asset, what those assets are worth, the proficiency to promote collaboration across the entire enterprise, and the capacity to rapidly respond to new business opportunities. Avid can help organizations get started implementing the Integrated framework no matter what their starting point. The Integrated provides them with the agility and responsiveness to tackle not only today s most pressing business challenges, but any future challenge or opportunity that comes their way. 7

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