Videotape is all-but extinct. Squeezed budgets, tight transmission deadlines and the demand for multi-platform 'deliverables' are driving TV productions towards entirely file-based workflows supported by a media-focused data management services and facilities market.
At the same time, content producers across the board have access to higher specification cameras and highly sophisticated - though relatively inexpensive editing – post-production and media asset management systems.
Plus, there are more and more channels, delivery platforms and reception devices on offer. Content is being provided at HD resolution, and beyond.
It all points to one inevitable conclusion: from lens to screen, the broadcast industry is becoming increasingly file-based and data-driven.
As a result, the demand for affordable high capacity data storage and high performance computing is booming.
Until recently, however, the Cloud has been viewed with mistrust by the majority of media and content companies.
Now, in the shape of private, managed Cloud services - rather than the common-or-garden public variety - it is being looked upon more favourably as a place to store valuable media assets and finished content that is ready for file-based distribution and delivery.
Let’s look at how that works.
During production and post-production, it is currently commonplace for media assets to be kept on local disk-based online and nearline systems for editing and re-versioning. The assets are then backed up and archived, to offline disk and data tape-based systems, ready to be recalled. These assets are catalogued and tracked using metadata to aid search, discovery and retrieval.
In an effort to be more efficient and cost-effective, it is now becoming more common for the storage and management of these nearline and offline assets to take place offsite, in a data centre environment, where service level agreements provide comfort and peace-of-mind to the asset's owners.
Early adopters with projects that have suitable workflows are also taking advantage of entirely browser-based editing environments, with all hardware and software hosted remotely, in the Cloud.
Production and project management and media asset management are also being accommodated in the Cloud. Users access projects remotely, via a browser, and collaboratively select shots and create rough assembly edits, exporting the results as XML to be picked up and used by craft editors.
Specialist media storage and computer services, including graphics rendering, file transcoding, quality control and loudness control, are beginning to emerge, as are entirely Cloud based channel playout services (including those available at WRN Broadcast).
Many of these services are mission critical, and have to be entrusted to third parties who understand the specific requirements of customers in the media industry.
WRN Broadcast’s purpose-built Broadcast Data Centre in Vauxhall on the banks of the river Thames in London offers broadcasters and related companies a secure environment for their servers and storage.
The facility provides customers with all the essential data centre requirements, including a backed up electricity supply, cooled air environment, fire suppression, a triple ID process, Redcare Chubb intruder alarm and individually lockable racks.
These facilities sit alongside WRNB's Content Delivery Network, guaranteed internet connectivity with diverse fibre routing, access to over 3000 PoPs worldwide and the ability to receive satellite signals from anywhere on the planet.
Other optional services range from monitoring and uplink to archive and storage, all taken from WRNB's existing range of broadcast managed services.
Data is now becoming more and more important to the broadcast industry and WRNB is right at the heart of it.
