Guiding video workflow
Apr 1, 2010 12:00 PM, By John Pallett
Video workflow management in an IT-based environment is more than just making data available.
However, such tools often come with the caveat that “You can have any process that you want … as long as it involves transcoding.” This ultimately can result in a mandated operational model, which may not be desirable for flexible video workflow design.
Standards-based approach to workflow management
Where systems need to interoperate, standards such as MXF and BXF have been proposed as an interoperability platform. The goal of such standards is typically to provide some degree of information interchange between systems that otherwise could not communicate.
However, neither a file format, nor a protocol specification, can actually perform the work required for interoperability. While MXF and BXF provide a vehicle for vendors to work together, the fully described workflow support within BXF and MXF is narrow and mandates a particular operating model. The reason for this is straightforward: It is up to the participating vendors to actually implement the process, and vendors cannot implement every possible process, nor can standards committees think of every possible use case.
As a result, when the workflow extends beyond the specifics of the standard, attempts are made to extend it. Specific implementations of the standard are proposed, and vendors are convinced to support the implementation, but this very method of implementing the process is the antithesis of flexibility. In the end, the standard works well as a requirements document, but the burden of workflow automation gets shared between participating vendors, and flexibility is difficult to achieve.
Successful video workflow management
While the approaches above have various limitations, two more holistic approaches exist that tend to meet the full set of video workflow management requirements:
- Software development
A growing number of media companies are building their own process management tools. The result is usually either done well at significant cost or done cheaply in an unreliable fashion.
When fully funded, software development has several advantages over traditional methods. This is particularly true when that software can understand video data types and can arbitrate between partial implementations of standards, removing the burden of interoperability from individual vendors. Such efforts may even be built upon existing middleware and standards, with software developed to fill the gaps as necessary.
When done cheaply, software engineering can be precarious: An IT manager may appear to reduce costs by automating a workflow, but if the result is a set of batch scripts on outdated computers, this can be a risky solution for companies where the video workflow is actually the revenue workflow.
- Video workflow management solutions
More recently, a new breed of solutions has arrived that are specifically targeted to address the challenge of video workflow management. Such video workflow management solutions tend to be at the intersection of the more traditional solutions. They include aspects of DAM such as storage management, clip management and metadata indexing.
They offer integrated analysis, transcoding and multichannel distribution tools. They may also maintain the flexibility of SOAP-based generic interfaces while actually understanding video data types, with the ability to pass video information between process steps.
Some such solutions are hosted with monthly fees — allowing companies to move their entire video workflow out of the building. This can save on capital expenditure, but not all content owners are comfortable allowing their primary assets to be managed externally.
Some in-house solutions involve systems integration work to implement the process and tend to be a large-scale proposition. For companies looking for a consultative review of internal processes, this can be an effective approach.
Finally, some out-of-the-box video workflow management solutions now exist. These solutions can offer easy-to-use workflow design and automation — with third-party integration in mind. This allows them to be deployed organically, interacting with existing systems to manage parts of the video workflow on an opportunistic basis.
These systems can scale up to full enterprise-class workflow management solutions, and can generally fit into an existing custom software architecture using Web services interfaces. As a result, these solutions may provide a low-risk, high-potential approach to introducing video workflow management within an organization, without requiring significant investment of time or capital investment.
John Pallett is senior product manager for Telestream.
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