Harris showed new features for its NewsForce news production and Invenio asset management systems at NAB 2010 that allow broadcasters to increase workflow efficiency, handle an expanding array of media sources and enrich their on-air product and the viewer experience in a variety of applications.
At its exhibit booth the company demonstrated its new “citizen journalist” application, which allows consumers to become reporters and stations and networks to benefit from a new form of immediate newsgathering. A new application allows Apple iPhone users to capture video and send it to designated catch servers. Newsrooms receive fast content that’s verifiable by GPS location and callback phone number, and is fully searchable using the Invenio asset management system.
Harris Nexio servers manage the nonbroadcast resolution of the iPhone material and ready it for broadcast via Harris Velocity edit systems. Video also can be captured with consumer cameras and sent from laptops, making anyone a one-person video crew covering breaking news.
At NAB, Harris also showed a new global proxy, low-resolution workflow comprising Nexio servers, Velocity 2.0 nonlinear editors and Invenio asset management. Using this workflow, TV journalists can browse and edit low-res proxies created from high-resolution media on Nexio servers networked across multiple cities and facilities.
Global proxy eliminates proprietary file systems, making the workflow platform-independent. Proxy media plays on most common software (QuickTime, Windows Media Player, VLC, etc.) and via an iPhone, iTouch, BlackBerry and other devices, making it suitable for Web and mobile applications. Creation of only one proxy version is required, as the same file — a standard MP4 — can be used by Invenio and third-party products and reside in the customer’s choice of standard IT storage. An embedded SMPTE UMID marks the clip in a unique way, so that it can always be referenced back to the Nexio server system that contains the corresponding high-res clip.
Harris also has added Sony XDCAM-EX and Panasonic AVC-Intra compression support to its Velocity editor capabilities, giving users a broader choice than ever of broadcast codecs from which to choose. The Velocity editor’s ability to create different resolution clips with their own unique codecs and output media assets via a single click simplifies the process of repurposing content for multiplatform delivery.