Vizrt announces that the Swedish Parliamentknown as Sveriges Riksdag in Stockholm, Swedenhas chosen a Vizrt digital media asset management (MAM) system to automate the workflow process as part of an overhaul of its Web portal. The portal is designed to provide live and on-demand video of speeches, debates, and other newsworthy events to the Swedish public and media. (A portal is a site that creates a single point of access to information collected from different sources.)
The portals newly automated workflow is based on Vizrts Viz Ardomea digital media asset management system that stores video and provides identifying metadata, converts video files to other formats, and provides editing capabilityalong with other complementary Vizrt products.
Because Viz Ardome automates everything from ingest to delivery, it will save the Parliament countless man-hours needed to prepare and deliver substantial amounts of video, said Parham Azimi, sales manager, media asset management products for Vizrts EMEA region. It also provides instant access to content and metadata, integrates with external information sources, and is easily scalable for future needs.
As video arrives from the Parliaments in-house production facility, the Viz Ardome ingests it, transcodes and transfers it to servers for Web streaming or download, and automatically updates it. Vizrt products also support a parallel content management workflowwhere staff can make creative decisions about the contentsuch as organizing, adding metadata, and editing.
Without this new Viz Ardome-based workflow, the Parliament might have had to scale back their Web portal expansion plans, Azimi said. Vizrt is very excited about this project because it clearly demonstrates how well our products can serve non-traditional environments in addition to broadcasting.
In addition to the companys traditional television broadcast roots, Vizrt products are in use for the display of real-time graphics on scoreboards within soccer stadiums; to drive news media web sites; store massive libraries of video and graphic data for the government and corporations; and to provide one graphical user interface on a single screen for security applications that integrate large amounts of video and graphic information. As one example of a non-broadcast environment, the New York Stock Exchange uses Vizrts Viz Virtual Studio for its NYSE MarkeTrac Live, a virtual set that provides financial reporters and web viewers with live market data for inclusion in financial newscasts.
The Swedish Parliaments current portal is based upon an early version of Viz Ardome. Parliament officials chose the latest Viz Ardome because it allows them to manage more extensive live streaming, video on demand, and searchable archives of virtually unlimited amounts of content. It also lets Swedish news outlets log in, search for video, browse in low-resolution, and even request their video selections be sent directly to their broadcast servers in high resolution and ready for air.
The complementary tools in this Viz Ardome workflow include: Viz Dart and Viz Capture to ingest video feeds, files, and tapes; Viz EasyCut, Viz PreCut, Viz MediaLogger for proxy-based video editing; and Viz VideoEngine, a two-channel multiformat video server. Theres also Viz Adactus, a content delivery platform geared to new media devices.