Multilingual broadcasting
Feb 1, 2010 12:00 PM, By Brian Kane
Automation enables broadcasters to effectively manage multilanguage tracks.
In today's multicultural broadcasting environment, the demand for program material in multiple language versions is increasing. Broadcasters seeking to build wider audiences for their content can do so by making programs viewable in the appropriate local languages for each target region. By providing this service, broadcasters not only increase their potential audience size, but also foster greater viewer loyalty and realize new opportunities for increasing advertising revenues through highly targeted campaigns.
While the addition of language tracks to the broadcast environment offers distinct benefits, it also adds greater complexity, which in turn can introduce new operational issues. The dubbing of additional languages to the original program can take up valuable time, and management of content becomes more difficult as staff members work with multiple versions of the same program, each in a different language. Given these challenges, broadcasters today need a faster, more manageable way to provide multilanguage broadcasting.
The trouble with tapes
Figure 1. In a typical workflow, additional languages must be inserted in a later process.
Select figure to enlarge.
Broadcasters that serve multilanguage markets frequently need to play out the same program concurrently in two or more languages. To provide this service for their audiences, broadcasters must add a different audio track for each language to the program. Historically, to add more languages, broadcasters often had to send a copy of the program to a dubbing house, where a new audio track was created for each required language. Back at the station, operators then had to insert the new track into the program as an additional audio track (space permitting), or make a separate copy of the program containing the new language track if they exceeded the number of audio tracks that they could physically get on one tape.
In instances where multiple languages were stored on tapes, automation systems had to understand which language was on which track, and the broadcaster had to establish clear operational practices describing the stack of audio tracks. However, in many operations, content originated from multiple sources, often resulting in the various languages being on the wrong track. This led to a requirement for the automation system to shuffle the tracks for playout by controlling audio routing at transmission or via audio mixing capabilities in the master control switcher.
Managing multiple audio tracks required multiple passes through the tape creation workflow, with different languages being added to a tape at different times. To a large degree, this operational overhead has persisted as systems have migrated from tape to server-based playout.
The addition of captions or subtitles brought another set of challenges to multilanguage broadcasting. Typically there were two options for adding the caption information: Insert the captions and subtitles during ingest from tape to server, or insert them live during playout. In either case, the workflows were linear operations, and required management processes and intelligence in the automation system to ensure the correct captions were combined with the correct video and audio essence.
Solving the problem in files
Today there are solutions available that reduce the overhead of managing multilanguage playout. The approach is to facilitate working with video, audio and captions as discrete pieces of essence that can be ingested and processed at different times and then combined as a complete asset for playout.
Figure 2. MXF supports a range of packages and items.
Select figure to enlarge.
Within this streamlined workflow, the system enables operators to classify language tracks with an identification code that is understood by the automation system and server. This track tagging technology allows audio files for language tracks to be combined in a wrapper with the video essence file and ancillary data such as captioning.
For example, a broadcaster sends a video clip with English audio on track 1 to the translation service provider with a request to add a Spanish-language audio track. Instead of laying down the new track in real time against the video clip, the translation service records a new language track and sends only the audio track back to the broadcaster. (See Figure 1 on page 8.)Using this approach, the broadcast facility can quickly add the Spanish audio to the video clip as track 2.
In addition to introducing operational efficiencies during ingest and preparation, the track tagging functionality also solves the problem of audio shuffling during playout. Instead of requiring routing systems or master control switchers to shuffle audio tracks, the automation systems and server use the track ID system to ensure the correct audio tracks are played out on the correct channels.
This more efficient and highly flexible model of multilanguage playout represents a significant improvement for broadcasters, but today's marketplace demands even greater versatility in localizing programming and playout.
Audiences are growing more complex, and in order to deliver the expected level of service to customers and to capitalize on revenue generation opportunities, broadcasters need to be innovative and flexible in their approach to program distribution in multiple languages.
In some instances, getting the right language version to the right channel at the right time is no longer enough. Increased demands for localized versions that take into account advertising break structures in different countries, edits of popular shows with different parental guideline ratings, and versions appropriate to cultural standards and religious sensitivities must all be accommodated by broadcasters.
In different languages, it can take a longer or shorter duration to say the same thing, so differing video edit points may also be needed. Multiply this variation of the length of a clip for many clips, and the difference can be significant. For example: The English sentence “The same sentence in different languages can have different durations,” in German is translated as “Der gleiche Satz kann in anderen Sprachen unterschiedliche Länge haben.”
In addition to managing program audio, broadcasters also must take into account the need to deliver different credit sequences and promotional material to various regions. All of these tasks add up to a many versions — and potentially an operational and storage overhead.
Greater flexibility
The MXF standard supports wrapping multiple essence and data streams in a single file. There are a variety of operational patterns that support varying degrees of modularity in how the components can be combined within a wrapper and subsequently accessed.
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