This article will be the first in a series that will continue for a while. I hope to explore some aspects of workflow for modern media and create some clarity about terms, trends, pitfalls, and successes. I am also hoping that as we explore this together you will feed back questions and comments that might steer future postings in the series to be more useful to you in the future.
How can we maintain flawless multi-channel broadcasting and multi-platform streaming without giving operators information overload? Monitoring by exception is widely accepted as a vital capability. But to gain all its benefits, the monitoring system needs to interpret more than just the hardware and software error messages. It needs to understand what is passing through the system, too.
As consumer demand for video continues to increase, the range of delivery models expands and provides us with more ways to consume it. The challenge facing today’s broadcasters and service providers is to keep pace with this explosion in demand, and to anticipate future delivery models and behavioral trends. Whilst computer and storage clouds promise to supplement and ultimately replace today’s media factories, for these implementations to be truly beneficial, the applications and solutions they deploy must be designed and built for the virtual environment.In this article we explore how these technologies apply to ‘the guardian of the cash register’ within the broadcast facility: the playout automation system.
