Inside automation
Oct 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Granby Patrick
Your guide to achieving successful systems integration in a cross-platform, multipurpose digital broadcasting environment starts here.
In the context of media file integration, the control system may be a conventional automation system, but it is more likely to be an asset management system with some degree of workflow automation. As well as providing a mechanism for initiating the transfers, there must be a mechanism that allows the receiver to be aware of the incoming material and its transfer status.
For major installations and enterprise-level performance, the system should be able to gracefully handle as many exception cases as possible. Files may fail to transfer for many reasons, and it is important to notify the users (probably both source and destination users) that the transfer has failed.
Systems used for this kind of integration need to be flexible so they can be configured for a range of media formats and metadata structures. These systems must also be precise so that everything transferred is valid and not spurious or corrupted. This ensures that the resulting files at the destination are formed for the intended target device. These two requirements tend to conflict, making the detail of providing reliable integration difficult to achieve and maintain over a long period.
Manufacturers will upgrade their products and software versions, changing the manner in which third-party systems communicate with them. The integration layer must have a flexible architecture that allows it to be adapted to this continuously changing landscape, while still offering consistent user interface and workflow behavior.
Movement
All of this is often carried out in an IT environment. Designing a secure network that supports the file movement and sharing needed requires skills that are in short demand. Most engineers skilled in general IT applications don't have experience dealing with the kinds of network and file traffic experienced in a broadcast facility. Most broadcast engineers don't have the experience in designing and configuring network systems to be efficient and secure. In many cases, over-engineering and accepting unnecessary limitations in the workflow and flexibility of the system are the compromises accepted in order to deliver a network that can be used in these kinds of environments.
Some broadcasters have already found the answer to their cross-platform, multi-application integration problems by using specialized integration software. Such solutions act as media highways for content to move freely between a range of applications irrespective of their hardware platforms or software architectures.
This approach not only overcomes any interconnectivity bottlenecks, but also optimizes workflow efficiency through advanced manipulation and management of metadata. Media is wrapped and streamed for movement through the production process, allowing the metadata to remain attached. Such software allows for tightly integrated workflows based uniquely on the user's objectives and resources.
Benefits
As well as optimized interoperability between best-of-breed products, including solid-state and disk-based camcorders, an array of other benefits can be achieved by using specialized integration software. A few of these benefits include improved media tracking and accessibility, financial and time savings through fewer manual processes, better use of existing assets, and improved reporting procedures. Improved reporting procedures can be accomplished by using the metadata to provide useful data to back-office systems for integration with administrative tasks such as billing and statistics reporting.
Most frustratingly, when it all comes together and works, the result looks so smooth and easy that it leaves everybody asking, “How come that was so difficult?!”
Granby Patrick is partner director of technology for Marquis Broadcast.
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