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one database for scheduling and a separate
one for playout automation means you have
to rely on a dumb interface between the two,
the transfer of a flat file. And that has two
major drawbacks.
“First, you have to define back at the
installation stage which information is going
to be transferred. Try to give the automation
too much detail and the transfer process takes
too long; try to make the file transfer slick
and you leave the transmission controller
without some information which might be
useful.
“Second, you have to decide operationally at
what time that transfer is going to take place,”
he continued. “Make it too early and the
schedule is still full of holes, which means a
lot of manual data entry in the transmission
suite, copy-typing from bits of paper. Make
it too late and transmission staff may not have
time to find missing material.”
Dave Harris of Carlton Digital puts that into
context. “The IBIS system allows caching to
be done well in advance. We may not know
exactly when something is required, but we
know it will be, so we can go away and find it
in plenty of time. That means our transmission
staff can concentrate on the real problems.”
The Carlton Digital installation includes
IBIS’s PreSeT planning and scheduling
system and Landscape playout automation.
Linking them is Media Flow, which provides
a simple interface for routine work. It is easy
to select a look-ahead period of days or even
weeks. Very quickly indeed Media Flow
analyses what material is scheduled which is
not currently loaded into the Sony MAV
servers. Not just the tape number but its
physical location in the library is listed for
each item.
“It goes further than that,” enthused Carlton’s
Dave Harris. “Because IBIS runs both the
automation and the scheduling we can ask
for things to be put in by the schedule to help
the automation.
“A classic example is that our house style at
the end of each programme is to run three or
four seconds of the end credits, then shrink
the programme in a DVE move to reveal a
‘coming up’graphic sequence from the server,
perhaps with a separate voiceover which
requires the programme audio to be ducked.
“As part of the compliance and quality control
process the operator will have entered the
duration of the end credits into the asset
database,” Harris explained. “That drives
everything else. If a scheduler tries to select
a promo which is too long to run over the end
credits it will flag the problem.
“Then all of those nested events – the
additional server item, the DVE moves,
maybe something from the character
generator, manipulating the audio levels – are
loaded into the automation,” he concluded.
“The result is a sophisticated transition which
is planned largely automatically and created
entirely automatically.”
Even transferring a multi-layer event like that
in a flat file would be difficult on other
systems. It would almost certainly involve
timecode calculations by someone to ensure
that the subsidiary events all happened at the
right moment.
Comprehensive
The key is the comprehensive database which
manages all the media assets. This starts at
the contract negotiation stage, with titles and
programme numbers entered as they are
bought. As the material arrives and goes
through compliance and QC, so information
is added and refined.
For instance, when a movie is purchased it
will be given an approximate duration,
probably based on one of the guidebooks.
Once it is timed accurately then the accurate
overall duration is used. As commercial break
patterns are established then the movie will
be divided into parts, and so on.
Building the schedule is a graphical process,
dragging and dropping programmes into slots.
Even on the scheduler’s desk there is built-in
reassurance, with a green dot appearing in
the schedule against a programme which is
physically in the building and barcoded, a red
dot to show that the tape is still awaited.
There is extensive support for compliance,
allowing a very large number of categories
for content to be
tracked.Aswell as providing
information for those writing EPG and listings
entries (at Carlton Digital the EPG data is
formatted automatically from the information
in PreSeT), this can be an invaluable aid in
the transmission suite. If there are live
presentation announcements then a quick look
into this part of the database – from the
automation workstation, of course – can
establish if a warning needs to be made before
a programme.
It would also be invaluable in those situations
where transmission controllers may need to
make last minute decisions about programmes
because of external events. Immediately after
a natural disaster, for instance, the broadcaster
might want to pull a movie which featured a
similar situation. Again, that information is
readily available, because of the integration
of asset management.
Dave Harris is very much a fan of this high
level of integration between planning,
scheduling and transmission. “This way of
working is so obviously right,” he said. “IBIS
has achieved a really elegant solution for our
needs.”
For IBIS, Mike Shaw emphasised his belief
that this integrated approach is the right way
to go for today’s broadcasters. “Why keep
different sets of information on your assets?
Enter the information just once, and use what
you need where you need it.
“We are just about to install a system at a
music channel in Kiev,” he told me. “All of
the information about each music video is
entered at the time of ingest and scheduling,
which it has to be anyway. But some of that
information is sent via the automation system
to the character generator, so all of the
captioning is created live and completely
automatically. So simple you wonder why no-
one else does it.
“At IBIS we have a saying: clever does not
have to be complicated. In asset management,
focus on what is really important for your
operation, then make sure your systems
support that, just once.”
A screen shot of the IBIS system
Broadcast Technology