AAF Conference SantaF

1
AAF Conference SantaFé

• Peter Mulder
• Dutch Broadcast facilities company Nederlands
  Omroepproductie Bedrijf (NOB)
• Netherlands

2
Introduction

• About NOB and the Dutch Broadcasters
• Projects starting / running at NOB
• Future projects

3
About Dutch Broadcast situation

• Much more complex than USA elections
• Public Broadcast channels Ned 1, 2 and 3
• Shared by 36 content creator companies
• 11 Regional Public broadcasters
• Commercial broadcasters 7 channels
• Delivery channels
• 95 viewers over cable
• 2 over satellite
• 2 Terestrial
• 1 No television at all

Plus occasional users in Caravans, camping's and
boats
4
Projects starting / running at NOB

• Connecting producers to production
• Distributed production
• In a step by step plan
• Browsing / searching in material / Programme
  research
• View along with the process
• The real distributed production later (Under
  discussion)
• Gigaport project (Mobile network)
• Media gateway
• Commitment to DVB MHP ( and )
• Connecting homes

5
Projects starting / running at NOB

• The DVB MHP project
• The basic service
• Profile 1 EPG and advanced Teletext February 2001
• Profile 2 Back channel 2 moths later
• Profile 3 Internet over DVB MHP
• The Next phase EU project to implement
  TV-Anytime functionality, business models based
  on local storage, local interactivity and
  interactive Program Guide etc.
• An EU project implementing MPEG-4 functionality
  in addition to MPEG-2 normal programme stream
• Demonstrating the combined business model Open
  horizontal for current free TV, with Vertical
  markets with a conditional access system.

6
Flow
Web connection
MUX
STB
Carousel

• Cable
• - Satelite
• Terrestrial
• - ...

DataBase

• - MHP Applicaties
• TV-anytime data
• MPEG-4 data

Return path
Return channel Data handling
7
The details, more problems

Consumer
8
The Metadata interweave

• Many groups are looking for minimum sets
• P/Meta B2B and S2S,
• TV-Anytime P2C,
• Is it realistic?
• It differs from situation to situation.
• Store everything you have.
• And just pick the attributes for that
  application.
• Production is not a linear process.
• Its not random, just a bit different ordered
  every time.

9
Metadata authoring framework
On-line Storage
Near-line Storage
Deep Storage
External Productions
Consumer Data Filter
Archives
Metadata flow / production chain
Pre- production metadata
Attributes Database
Mux in to DVB stream or program stream
End-user In-home network and storage
Production planning
Transmission Multiplex
Broadcast channel switching
Production Studios
Multi-media production
Newsrooms
10
IDs
S M P T E M e t a d a t a
DVB /M H P C O N S U M E R
IDs
Admin
Admin
Parametr.
Parametr.
Techno
Techno
Schedule
Schedule
Class
Rights
Rights
Class
Class
Class
Interaction
Interaction
TVA stuff
TVA stuff
11
Representation of metadata

• Textual formats versus Binary formats
• How much difference in bandwidth is it really
• What we need is the free choice of Transcoding
• In MPEG they solve a lot of very difficult
  problems
• But do they solve our real world problems
• The process must by led from a vision
• Not a collection of arbitrary user requirements

12
Infrastructure
Office and newsroom seats (300 journalists)
Newsroom system
Browseserver
Archive
DTL
Media Manager
Contribution
TV studios
Medianetwork
Asset Management
Matrix
Video Centrum
Radio
Graphics
Editing
13
The integration process

• Audio and video Infrastructure and data
• Sports and newsroom for radio, television and
  teletext
• Radio and television news integration
• Off-line and online post production Audio and
  Video
• Graphics 2D and 3D
• Virtual sets
• Contribution network feeds (media recording)
• Archiving (automated online/near-online)

14
Periphery control integration

• teleprompter
• character generator
• still store
• subtitling
• robotic camera
• Servers / clip management
• Play-out automation ??

15
Infrastructure

• Server based production where possible
• Media network with distributed (broadcast)servers
• Online/near-online archiving on video and data
  tapes
• Mixed carrousels
• Remote access to the system (reporters)
• Integrated systems for radio and television
  production.
• Infrastructure is a hybrid of
• SDI video and AES/EBU audio
• SDTI (CP)
• Media data transfer via high-speed networks (MXF
  ?)
• Others
• How to migrate all those islands to one networked
  process??

16
Graphics and virtual sets

• Transportability of Graphics, area to look at.
• Is there a way to connect the old world with
  the AAF world?
• Transport of virtual sets data
• This is an other area of our interest,
• We have to store the data in a standardized way,
• The positioning data needs a very high precision
  and is a field by field dynamic process,
• We try to integrate real-time rendered 3D sets
  with MPEG-4 real-time overlays

17
Radio and Television studios

• Modular concept
• Dynamic resource management
• Digital infrastructure 360 Mb/sec SDI
• Switch-able 43/169 (standard resolution)
• Additional data service for content enrichment
• Real-time interactive games
• Programme segmentation for consumers
• Multi vendor integration

18
The current situation

• You dont believe how many times a day people
  walk with a tape from A to B to bring it and
  handover a notepad with the essential
  information.
• This is not because of the network is not
  available.
• Social reasons
• Reliability of the (written) transfer
• Past experiences approve the value of doing this!

19
Be careful with updates

• Next software release always better
• In production we need stable situations.
• Many software developers are proud to have the
  next version of there software,
• In production it means Bug fixing again and
  again.
• Operators find there systems upside down and have
  to learn the modifications again and again.
• Lost production time, mad customers

20
Open source software

• Just open source is not enough.
• It need the commitment of all parties that supply
  equipment that can be used in the framework.
• It need a top level management system.
• Standards developed as a consensus model not
  always the best you can wish.

21
Is there a role for AAF in

• The integration development for exchange in
  textual formats and binary formats?
• Between production islands
• Between production and consumer applications
• The beauty of standards is
• There are so many
• Which is the real right one to use?
• How can we create a data model / business model
  to come to the right choices in standards

22
Wrap-up

• Wider view than just exchange in Post Production.
• Metadata exchange for additional services direct
  to (individual) consumers. (integration in
  production)
• OMFI was needed some time ago by smaller PC
  application companies to connect to the Big
  Broadcast environment.
• Now small ones are becoming big ones and the
  environment is about to changed dramatically.
• The view have to be broadened.
• Is this the right moment to get all the bits
  together and create a real world migration path
  to distributed object based production?

23
What are we doing at NOB

• Product development
• Study the SDK at the moment
• Get funding and people for small trial
  implementations
• Develop the overall view
• And start the discussion with vendors how to
  really build it.

24

• FIN