So many of you came to us to talk about captions during NAB. Based on our conversations, it’s clear that captions remain a huge source of frustration and worry. Broadcast workflows are more complex than ever. Add captions to the mix, and the complexity takes on a new dimension: Now, what you don’t want to do, is carry on…
Why can’t we standardize our XML schemas? It should be easy – right? After all, we’ve been exchanging content between facilities for decades and we write the same stuff on bits of paper regardless of who’s receiving it. Don’t we? We’re Consistent – Right? It seems the answer is “Not really”. One of the hidden…
If integrating captions in your workflow is making you reach for the Aspirin, then here are a few tips that might alleviate the pain: 1. Follow the Law At the end of 2012 the FCC passed the 21st Century Communications Act. According to the new regulation, all video content that is broadcast on television in…
I am continually amazed at how, even cost conscious, companies create delivery specifications. When it’s done correctly, a good delivery specification reduces costs for the business, improves interoperability, increases reliability, reduces failure rates and might even boost staff morale because things just work better. It shouldn’t really be a surprise. A delivery specification is essentially…
In the light of the recent FCC regulations, captioning for post houses has become more of a pain than ever. It is something you have to do because by law, your clients, who own the copyright to the material, have to do it: It’s Gonna Get Harder… It was already enough of a challenge when you…
It was the poet Tennyson who wrote about “brawling courts and dusty purlieus of the law”. Which may seem like an unlikely point to start a technical blog, but bear with me: 21st Century Communications and Video c Act Broadcasting has always been regulated by law, and as technology and society have moved on, so…
July 1936 Fred Perry was winning Wimbledon and the NBC was conducting programming tests in High definition (225 of RCA’s licensees saw programming on 22 centimeter screens, 343 lines per picture, 30 pictures per second): 77 years later and another British tennis player wins Wimbledon and the event pulls in the biggest TV audience in…
I can imagine the scene now. I’m sitting on a chair in the forest many years in the future with my grandchildren trying to set fire to things or blow things up (the way they do). I will have just finished watching the director’s cut of “Le magasin des suicides” on my new super-duper 16K…
I bring good news to all! The FCC has recently issued an order stating that baby video monitors are exempt from having to decode closed captions! Phew, that is going to make all the difference in the world for the media industry: As you will know if you are an avid reader of this blog, the FCC in…
The overriding issue in the development of file-based workflows is the meeting of the worlds of broadcast and IT technology head on. This issue has been discussed in magazines and online for many years. Rather smugly, it has been suggested by many that IT technology is the poor relation compared with the complexity of the…
If you read my last post on the evils of interlace, you’ll know how strongly I feel about the topic. Just like maggot therapy went out of fashion with the advent of antibiotics, interlace is on its way out with the arrival of HEVC: Hold on a second, I hear you say, if interlace is so bad,…
“Broadcasters moving to file-based production facilities have to consider how to use automated Quality Control (QC) systems. Manual quality control is simply not adequate anymore and it does not scale,” so says the EBU. It is reassuring when you see that what you have been advising customers for years is supported by a leading broadcast industry body…
Readers of this blog will be aware of its regular focus on the Digital Production Partnership or DPP as it is more commonly known. When terminology such as ‘revolutionary’ and ‘a future broadcast industry cornerstone’ are used to describe a concept it is normally a good indication that all that glitters is not necessarily gold: However, this is…
Next week, in a corner of the Bayerischer Rundfunk campus in Munich, Germany, likely without much fanfare, something fairly monumental will take place – the IRT MXF PlugFest. Now in its ninth year, this event brings together vendors in the media and entertainment industry to facilitate MXF interoperability tests. Following each event, the IRT (Institute für Rundfunktechnik)…
Last week, the infamous Consumer Electronics Show (better known as CES) took place in Las Vegas. While it’s not an event that many vendors like ourselves in the media industry attend, it is a show that we watch carefully – acknowledging that our customers’ business is consumer-led, and that innovation in consumer electronics will often…
I’ve always told new staff that “You only get one chance to be a newbie!”. This often confuses people. What I am trying to say to them is that when you join a new company, there are many things that you don’t know about the way the company works, the people, the products, the design…
I like Broadcast Asia – it’s small enough to walk around in a couple of hours, yet all the main brands and an impressive number of international countries are represented. No-one is expecting “a big theme” or “a big announcement” in the way that is expected at NAB and IBC. In fact the general air…
There is scarcely time to draw breath after IBC and suddenly the SMPTE conference is upon us. But unlike Amsterdam, the sun nearly always shines in Hollywood! There are only two streams for the paper sessions at SMPTE, which is a good thing because it means that the papers committee can be REALLY focused on…
Next week, the Loews Hotel here in Hollywood will play host to the SMPTE 2014 Annual Technical Conference & Exhibition, during which we will be taking the stage with Mr. Bruce Devlin to learn how his university professor taught him not to be a “smart-arse” – but also for us both to talk a little…
At the start of June, we heard that the IBC has short-listed BT Sport, Timeline Television and ourselves for the IBC Innovation Award under the Content Management category. This is a good reason to celebrate – in short-listing our submission IBC is recognizing all the effort made making sure that BT Sport’s new production facility…
So many of you came to us to talk about captions during NAB. Based on our conversations, it’s clear that captions remain a huge source of frustration and worry. Broadcast workflows are more complex than ever. Add captions to the mix, and the complexity takes on a new dimension: Now, what you don’t want to do, is carry on…
Why can’t we standardize our XML schemas? It should be easy – right? After all, we’ve been exchanging content between facilities for decades and we write the same stuff on bits of paper regardless of who’s receiving it. Don’t we? We’re Consistent – Right? It seems the answer is “Not really”. One of the hidden…
If integrating captions in your workflow is making you reach for the Aspirin, then here are a few tips that might alleviate the pain: 1. Follow the Law At the end of 2012 the FCC passed the 21st Century Communications Act. According to the new regulation, all video content that is broadcast on television in…
I am continually amazed at how, even cost conscious, companies create delivery specifications. When it’s done correctly, a good delivery specification reduces costs for the business, improves interoperability, increases reliability, reduces failure rates and might even boost staff morale because things just work better. It shouldn’t really be a surprise. A delivery specification is essentially…
In the light of the recent FCC regulations, captioning for post houses has become more of a pain than ever. It is something you have to do because by law, your clients, who own the copyright to the material, have to do it: It’s Gonna Get Harder… It was already enough of a challenge when you…
It was the poet Tennyson who wrote about “brawling courts and dusty purlieus of the law”. Which may seem like an unlikely point to start a technical blog, but bear with me: 21st Century Communications and Video c Act Broadcasting has always been regulated by law, and as technology and society have moved on, so…
July 1936 Fred Perry was winning Wimbledon and the NBC was conducting programming tests in High definition (225 of RCA’s licensees saw programming on 22 centimeter screens, 343 lines per picture, 30 pictures per second): 77 years later and another British tennis player wins Wimbledon and the event pulls in the biggest TV audience in…
I can imagine the scene now. I’m sitting on a chair in the forest many years in the future with my grandchildren trying to set fire to things or blow things up (the way they do). I will have just finished watching the director’s cut of “Le magasin des suicides” on my new super-duper 16K…
I bring good news to all! The FCC has recently issued an order stating that baby video monitors are exempt from having to decode closed captions! Phew, that is going to make all the difference in the world for the media industry: As you will know if you are an avid reader of this blog, the FCC in…
The overriding issue in the development of file-based workflows is the meeting of the worlds of broadcast and IT technology head on. This issue has been discussed in magazines and online for many years. Rather smugly, it has been suggested by many that IT technology is the poor relation compared with the complexity of the…
If you read my last post on the evils of interlace, you’ll know how strongly I feel about the topic. Just like maggot therapy went out of fashion with the advent of antibiotics, interlace is on its way out with the arrival of HEVC: Hold on a second, I hear you say, if interlace is so bad,…
“Broadcasters moving to file-based production facilities have to consider how to use automated Quality Control (QC) systems. Manual quality control is simply not adequate anymore and it does not scale,” so says the EBU. It is reassuring when you see that what you have been advising customers for years is supported by a leading broadcast industry body…
Readers of this blog will be aware of its regular focus on the Digital Production Partnership or DPP as it is more commonly known. When terminology such as ‘revolutionary’ and ‘a future broadcast industry cornerstone’ are used to describe a concept it is normally a good indication that all that glitters is not necessarily gold: However, this is…
Next week, in a corner of the Bayerischer Rundfunk campus in Munich, Germany, likely without much fanfare, something fairly monumental will take place – the IRT MXF PlugFest. Now in its ninth year, this event brings together vendors in the media and entertainment industry to facilitate MXF interoperability tests. Following each event, the IRT (Institute für Rundfunktechnik)…
Last week, the infamous Consumer Electronics Show (better known as CES) took place in Las Vegas. While it’s not an event that many vendors like ourselves in the media industry attend, it is a show that we watch carefully – acknowledging that our customers’ business is consumer-led, and that innovation in consumer electronics will often…
I’ve always told new staff that “You only get one chance to be a newbie!”. This often confuses people. What I am trying to say to them is that when you join a new company, there are many things that you don’t know about the way the company works, the people, the products, the design…
I like Broadcast Asia – it’s small enough to walk around in a couple of hours, yet all the main brands and an impressive number of international countries are represented. No-one is expecting “a big theme” or “a big announcement” in the way that is expected at NAB and IBC. In fact the general air…
There is scarcely time to draw breath after IBC and suddenly the SMPTE conference is upon us. But unlike Amsterdam, the sun nearly always shines in Hollywood! There are only two streams for the paper sessions at SMPTE, which is a good thing because it means that the papers committee can be REALLY focused on…
Next week, the Loews Hotel here in Hollywood will play host to the SMPTE 2014 Annual Technical Conference & Exhibition, during which we will be taking the stage with Mr. Bruce Devlin to learn how his university professor taught him not to be a “smart-arse” – but also for us both to talk a little…
At the start of June, we heard that the IBC has short-listed BT Sport, Timeline Television and ourselves for the IBC Innovation Award under the Content Management category. This is a good reason to celebrate – in short-listing our submission IBC is recognizing all the effort made making sure that BT Sport’s new production facility…
