The OmniBus Process Unification System (OPUS) is a suite of software components and centralized applications services designed to tightly integrate with both broadcast operations and business systems. The tools provide advanced media and asset metadata management, both through local OmniBus meta-databases and integration with other metadata systems.
OPUS is based on OmniBus' G3 architecture, which, via a series of application-specific modules, allows media, asset, task and workflow management to be integrated into a station's daily operations. These also integrate easily into other OmniBus applications like News and Master Control.
To ensure that metadata can be used across a variety of applications, the embedded information is inextricably linked to the corresponding asset itself, remaining independent of each of the numerous applications that may add or modify metadata during its lifetime.
A series of G3 modules enables the system to deliver media asset workflow tools right to the operator's desktop integrated with their operational workflow rather than as a stand-alone application or workstation. This is accomplished using specialized client applications for Research, Documentation, Logging, Media Management, etc. or through focused workflow point-solutions, designed to support particular operational areas, such as Ingest, Quality Control, Post Production, Media & Archive Management and Disaster Recovery. The company said that in many cases, a combination of both client applications and point workflows are used together.
The OPUS suite also offers interfaces between other metadata-generating systems, like audio and video content analysis tools, content indexing tools, such as sophisticated free text indexers, state-of-the-art image recognition tools, and enterprise-wide asset management systems to allow exchange of metadata and content queries.
The system also provides media asset management plug-ins for use in newsroom computer systems, such as the AP's ENPS and Avid Technology's iNEWS, allowing journalists to work in the newsroom to develop their news stories and link those stories to the real assets being put together in the OmniBus news production system. Journalists can then access metadata, stream browse-quality content to their desktops, make rough-cut edits and request content movement from an archive to the central production servers. Users of the OPUS suite of tools can also generate and distribute low-resolution proxies for local or remote content viewing and re-purposing.
Among the important areas of the production and distribution process addressed by the OPUS software modules are: Workflow Management; Automatic Ingest; Quality Control and Compliance; Post-Production; Archive and Media Management; and Disaster Recovery.
For more information visit www.omnibus.tv.