File-based workflow: Producing content in a virtual workspace
File-based workflow is fundamentally different. For one thing, files are transported and used in quite different ways from baseband signals. They contain more elements — audio, video, and metadata — necessary to facilitate their use. Files are closer to videotape or film representations than they are to baseband SDI/HD-SDI streams, for they both live in a container (wrapper) and carry metadata on the “surface” — or, in the case of a tape, on the box — which allows one to understand what is in the container.
The evolution of encoding
MPEG-2 has lived for two decades, H.264 is already approaching its second decade, and the early deployments of HEVC will certainly begin this year.
The evolution of production switchers
It’s funny how our business reinvents itself on a regular basis. Even funnier still is how commodity IT technology has been in the forefront of switcher developments of late.
Learning to use fiber optics in the studio.
Bandwidth is not infinite, at least not in our restricted media technology enterprise. Cost and innovation are drastically affected today by our ability to interconnect signals of many types over distances no shorter than what we have been used to with coaxial video interconnections. While copper-based interconnection technology has key roles in modern facilities, increasingly optical fiber has important attributes that facilitate technology that traditional wired infrastructures cannot duplicate easily, or at least over practical distances. An evolution
Metadata
During the time Phil Livingston, ex-Panasonic, and I worked together at AZCAR, we often shared sometimes silly e-mail messages about technology topics. Sadly, Phil passed away in 2006. But the messages we shared included one I still find
quite amusing:
Facility remote monitoring
Parsing words carefully can sometimes lead to interesting results. This topic could cover monitoring over a large distance, or it could cover gathering information about systems within one facility. Then again, it could mean monitoring many facilities from one location. It seems to me that in the context of our changing industry, it needs to cover all three.
Monitoring in a flat world
Fundamental to any control room is a method of monitoring the audio and video that is being assembled in production or air operations. Though the requirements
Backup and UPS power
A few years ago, I visited a satellite transmission facility in a remote location that was designed to operate off grid if necessary for a considerable
Multiviewer displays
The time is approaching when all displays will process images, with many displaying more than one input at a time. In fact, like it or not, essentially
Portable lighting
The broadcast business is about capturing images and using them to create content that informs, enlightens and entertains. All of that starts with replicating
Video storage technology
John Watkinson spoke at a SMPTE conference in New York a number of years ago. The conference featured many papers on the topic Computers and Television:
Satellite services and systems, part 2
Last month's column began with a short reference to the first transatlantic satellite transmission over Telstar (1965). Of course, the more interesting
Satellite services and systems, part 1
Satellites first were used in television for short-duration transatlantic interconnection. Short could mean a few minutes, but at the time it was a technological
Streaming video
Streams and files are two key concepts that are inextricably intertwined with the technology we use in production and delivery of content. Files are defined
Video processing
As in many areas of technology, we are entering a time of particularly strong change in how video is processed. It is transparent that analog processing
