Guest blog by Ben Foakes, Founder and Managing Director, BASE Media Cloud
The rapid convergence of traditional broadcast video workflows with data based IT practices is facing serious growing pains when up against the Exabyte challenge. In this 3-part guest blog post, BASE Media Cloud founder and Managing Director, Ben Foakes, walks through the changing landscape of media workflows and the technologies paving the way for more, richer digital media content than ever before.
Part I: Media State Of Play – Connectivity, Data Storage And Services
The media industry is one of the most exciting places to be right now. There are now more tools with which to create stunning content, more creative people with affordable access to those tools and more digital outlets to broadcast content than ever before in our history.
The rate of technological change is pretty staggering, both in terms of available technology and the constantly accelerating format demands from content producers.
The most interesting thing going on in media tech right now is undoubtedly the rapid convergence of traditional broadcast video workflows with data based IT practices, not least in terms of high speed connectivity, data storage and software-defined services. These three components are influencing every step of the production process from the moment a researcher scans Google for inspiration, throughout the entire production and post production work flow, to the moment a master file lands on a transmission server to be ’streamed’ (not beamed) to eagerly awaiting audiences at home.
Changing Times (or how I used to daisy-chain large bricks)
When I started out as an editor in 1999, we were cutting standard definition, 4:3 video tape material from stacks of daisy-chained SCSI drives (with only 8GB of capacity per large brick), using hardware-based Avid editing suites that, at the time, cost as much as a small semi-detached house to buy and maintain.
When we built our Apple Final Cut Pro post production facility at Pinewood Film Studios in 2005, my previous company had to invest well over £40,000 ($62,000) for a small capacity Xsan storage system to support a modest scale 4 edit suite setup. That was before provisioning any of the editing equipment or flashily decorated edit suites. After upgrading to our flagship central London facility in 2010 we had to invest upwards of £150,000 ($233,000) in shared in-house NAS storage, network infrastructure, software and engineering resources to support the everyday storage requirements of just 8 Mac work stations….in one single site. We were a small company. Larger media companies spent, and still spend into the millions.
Fast forward to 2015 and we are in a different world, both in terms of available technology and the incoming demands from media production clients of all shapes and sizes.
Today, production, post production and content distribution is a 99% file-based process. It is a higher speed, quicker turnaround business, often employing the skills of teams dispersed across multiple locations, working with file-based media in multiple formats, resolutions and associated data sizes. There is also, generally speaking, less money to spend on a ‘per production’ basis.
Our customers are shooting, transferring, storing and processing massive volumes of file-based media at higher-than-ever ratios, not least because high resolution acquisition is now so easy, and it looks SO good!
Tipping Point
File based delivery is not particularly new. Digital streaming platforms such as YouTube, Netflix and Hulu have been making serious waves over the last few years and the media industry has adjusted well to delivering multi-platform file-based content accordingly. Even cinema has quietly transitioned from traditional film projection to high quality digital 2k and 4k projection, meaning that movie masters are generally now delivered as file-based DCP (Digital Cinema Packages) rather than Reels.
The tipping point came last year when the television industry finally caught up with 21st century practices. In October 2014 all major UK Broadcasters agreed on switching from tape-based delivery to a standardised file format called AS-11 (the file equivalent of a master tape with a label). This was a move spearheaded by the DPP (Digital Production Partnership) to help build workflow efficiency into the (UK) broadcast industry by consolidating the numerous, disparate delivery formats into a single, up to date, file-based standard. Everyone from broadcasters, production houses, post facilities and manufacturers are actively involved in the transition process, which so far, has been a pretty seamless affair.
The DPP are now actively working with international bodies including NABA (the North American Broadcasters Association) to create common delivery standards that will enable more efficient exchange of media between global broadcasters, in particular between UK, Europe and North America. This is great news for media companies who have spent years having to deal with the frankly messy lists of clunky, impractical, disconnected deliverables. It will also bring challenges.
Continue on to read Part II: Media File Flood Gates
