Ross Video is acquiring Primestream, a Miami-based provider of media asset management products for media production. Primestream customers include Cisco, Microsoft Studios, Verizon Media, USC Annenberg School of Journalism, Nordic Entertainment Group, RSI (Radiotelevisione svizzera), the NFL Network, ABP News and Sun T.

Primestream's solutions are used by customers within various market verticals, including Enterprise, Digital Media, Sports and Broadcast. Their solutions are designed to solve the increasingly complex creative, business and technology challenges in each market.

Primestream supports a comprehensive range of workflows for live-feeds and file-based content—from HD to 4K and VR/360—enabling users to streamline editing, newsroom metadata logging, control room playout, and seamlessly share, edit, review and approve content prior to either broadcasting live, automate on-demand play-out, or publish to a wide range of OTT platforms.

The acquisition is Ross Video’s 17th since 2009 and the addition of its approximately 35-40 employees brings the Ross employee headcount to more than 1,000. Primestream President/CEO Claudio Lisman and EVP Namdev Lisman will continue to oversee the Primestream portfolio and will also manage the transition of Primestream’s R&D and technical support teams over to Ross. 

Ross will integrate Pimestream’s product line into Ross’s Streamline media asset management solution over time, “to create a fully converged graphics and production asset management platform,” the company said.

“We are extremely proud of what we have achieved here at Primestream, from both a solutions development and customer engagement perspective, said Lisman. “We have built an exceptional team that’s very customer centric in approach. In joining Ross, we are joining a like-minded group that will help us reach new international markets, scale much more effectively and realize our aspirations.”

MIAMI—Primestream has introduced updates to its Xchange media asset management platform, which enable it to access and log “growing files” from live broadcast feeds as the content is being recorded. Xchange is designed to specifically help with news and sports production efficiencies.

The new Xchange ingest access feature lets users start creating a rough-cut edit of the program in real time as the live content is being captured in SDI- or IP-based operations, and then deliver the sequence immediately to air. A live clip can be reviewed, with timeline tools in Xchange being able to mark beginning and ending points of segments, as well as add metadata with descriptive comments to help with content search and retrieval.

Once a rough cut is done, the new Xchange features allow for transitions and graphics to be added for inclusion in a later scheduled program. The edit is also instantly available to editors working in the Xchange shared environment. Integration with NLE tools like Adobe Premiere Pro or Apple Final Cut Pro is also possible.

Primestream says that Xchange can be integrated with content distribution networks and more than 100 third-party providers for maximum MAM flexibility.

For more information, visit www.primestream.com.  

BOSTON—Primestream and storage company Wasabi have announced a partnership that will integrate Primestream’s Xchange media asset management platform with Wasabi storage for global asset management, archiving, content contribution, production and distribution.

The hybrid platform will combine Xchange’s ability to organize media libraries across various storage environments with Wasabi’s cloud storage. This is meant to allow media professionals to manage more content quickly, leverage AI, increase collaboration and provide a holistic view over an entire media library.

The new combination provides scalable cloud storage at a low-cost, according to Claudio LIsman, president and CEO of Primestream.

“Primestream’s Xchange media asset management platform enables production from anywhere and combined with Wasabi hot cloud storage provides an affordable hybrid solution for artists to work quickly and efficiently,” added David Friend, CEO of Wasabi.

For more information, visit www.primestream.com.  

The media industry’s evolution from baseband to IP turned into a revolution in 2020. With the global pandemic shuttering studios, emptying broadcast operations centers and sidelining OB trucks, streaming and broadcast productions were forced to double down on remote production workflows and technologies. Consequently, they embraced IP like never before, together with its game-changing efficiency, cost savings and flexibility for meeting rapidly changing requirements.

As IP continues to go mainstream for video production, producers have identified key requirements. They’re looking to move away from bulky, expensive hardware to more flexible software and cloud-based solutions as well as more lightweight field gear like bonded cellular backpacks. 

They need IP streaming solutions that can be incorporated easily into production workflows, with the ability to ingest non-baseband sources. Broadcast operations need to be able to use the entire gamut of IP-based protocols, and sometimes several of them during the same production. Likewise, they need fast, frictionless ways to transcode feeds and files into multiple video house formats for asset management and distribution. 

The concept of an IP network operations center (IP NOC) addresses all of these requirements by bringing together the state of the art in IP-based signal acquisition and cloud-based media asset management (MAM). Driven by these enabling technologies, the IP NOC offers a paradigm shift from traditional broadcast operation centers and satellite trucks to smaller and more nimble transmission gear, cameras and capture devices. 

In this article, we’ll take a closer look at the IP phenomenon, the core elements of the IP NOC and the IP future of video workflows.

A POWERFUL EVOLUTION

Traditional broadcast systems using SDI require dedicated routing switchers, video monitors and ingest hardware. While they offer reliability and high quality, they are inflexible and limited in terms of the number of inputs and outputs that can be achieved without adding additional hardware routing switchers. Adding additional output formats for edit, MAM and playout is equally cumbersome.

In contrast, IP-based systems offer the ability to acquire signals from a virtually unlimited number of inputs using a wide range of protocols (SRT, WebRTC, HLS, RTSP, etc.), then output via an Ethernet switch for live multicamera monitoring, real-time transcoding to house formats, live editing and finally publication, distribution and/or retransmission. 

And there’s good news for broadcasters who are taking a phased approach to the IP migration: With an IP NOC topology, they don’t need to drop SDI entirely—IP streaming, NDI and SDI can coexist in the same workflow.

The IP revolution is also having an impact on outside broadcasting and on-location newsgathering. Traditionally, remote broadcast teams have had to rely on OB trucks, large antennas and plenty of logistical and technical wrangling just to get a signal back to the broadcast operation center. Today, bonded cellular transmission radically simplifies remote production and live contribution, replacing those unwieldy antennas and expensive uplink trucks with devices small enough to hold in your hand or, at most, wear in a backpack. 

Camera operators and producers can bond together 10x 1Mbps upstream SIM cards to achieve 10Mbps of throughput, which is more than enough to deliver an HD stream and negate the need for a satellite uplink.

BUILDING THE FOUNDATION: THE IP NOC

Working in combination, portable IP signal acquisition technologies and cloud-based tools are enabling broadcast and streaming production teams to work entirely remotely—with access to more capabilities than ever before. 

This is the essence of the IP NOC, which extends advanced bonded cellular transmission solutions and cloud-based MAM systems in either centralized or distributed deployments. With the right technologies, broadcasters can assemble an entire IP operation using off-the-shelf hardware and acquire signals from all manner of IP sources.

CAPTURING ANY VIDEO, FROM ANYWHERE

The first key component in the IP NOC is advanced video production and distribution technology for remote video capture. For effective IP video streaming and broadcast, this component should include the following attributes:

• Ability to capture content from any IP stream, camera or broadcast source, including SRT, NDI, HLS, RTSP, DASH and even SDI, taking incoming feeds from both baseband and non-baseband sources. 
• Ability to transcode live content in real time into broadcast formats (ProRes, XDCAM, AVC-Intra, DVCPRO, H.264 and H.265/HEVC) for fast integration into production, management and delivery workflows. 
• Ability to work with both HD and 4K UHD signals. 
• Support for real-time editing in Apple Final Cut Pro X and Adobe Premiere Pro, enabling editors to preview and edit live streams in those NLEs while the video feed is still being captured. 
• A software-only solution that manages all streams in real time without costly hardware decoders.  

TAKING MAM TO THE CLOUD

The MAM component of the IP NOC brings powerful asset management functionality to the cloud, making it easy for geographically dispersed teams to store, access, produce and manage all of their media assets as well as collaborate on projects from anywhere in the world. Operations making a more phased journey to the cloud can deploy the solution either as a temporary replacement or supplement to an on-prem MAM installation, or as a long-term hybrid solution for the future.

The IP NOC’s MAM capability includes the following:

•  Ability to access all production assets and associated metadata both within and outside the facility from a single, unified UI, with comprehensive search capabilities and real-time playback. 
•  Integrations with major editing software (Adobe Creative Cloud, Apple Final Cut ProX, DaVinci Resolve), giving video, sound, graphics and effects teams the ability to work on any streams or files from any location.  
•  Ability for production teams to work with both baseband and SDI sources as well as IP files and streams.  
•  Ability to archive and restore content to local and cloud-based archives from any location and across multiple storage tiers. 

THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE

The traditional broadcast operations center will always have its place, but the new IP normal offers unlimited possibilities for broadcast and streaming operations. This migration was well underway before 2020, but the unprecedented events of last year have pushed many production teams to make the leap now.  

The advanced IP-based video acquisition and cloud-based MAM solutions built into the IP NOC is smoothing the way—helping video operators meet their immediate demands today, while positioning themselves ideally for the IP future.  

Claudio Lisman is president/CEO of Primestream. 

SAN JOSE, Calif.—Like multinational organizations everywhere, Cisco Television started 2020 with one set of goals and expectations in mind, and then woke up to a harsh reality when the coronavirus pandemic hit. Almost overnight, we had to transition from producing major, high-profile, in-person events to an almost completely remote operation. Here’s the rundown on how we’ve accomplished that and the enabling technologies that have come into play.

A LITTLE BACKGROUND

Nested within the Cisco sales and marketing ecosystem, Cisco Television provides video production, creative services, engineering and connectivity for the company’s internal and external meetings and events. With main studios and control rooms based at Cisco’s main campus in San Jose, Calif., we also operate from four other geolocations: Research Triangle Park, N.C.; Bedfont Lakes, U.K.; Bangalore, India; and Singapore.

Globally, Cisco Television produces about 1,500 broadcasts a year including around 250 external productions—ranging from our Cisco Live tradeshow, Cisco Partner Summit and Impact national sales meeting to product launches, webinars and events such as those for the Cisco STEM program.

Cisco is already well-known for its technologies and product lines enabling collaboration and remote workflows. Two great examples are the Webex video conferencing platform and the TelePresence SX80 product line, which works almost like an extremely low-latency “satellite in a box” for video collaboration. Another important element is our Primestream infrastructure, which includes comprehensive ingest, automated master control playout, and the Xchange media asset management platform.

At our San Jose hub, we operate with 18 record and 16 playback channels in Primestream. The Xchange MAM acts as a “single source of truth” for our entire operation—providing a centralized archive for all content produced by each Cisco region and giving our teams at the other four geolocations immediate access to the assets they need.

Pre-pandemic, Cisco TV was already using these tools to produce around 20% of its shows either as partially or fully remote events, including a mix of on-premises and off-premises presenters. When COVID hit in early March (California was one of the  rst states to go into quarantine), we were therefore well-prepared to transition to an almost 100% remote operation.

THE CURRENT SETUP

Within a week of pivoting to our new COVID reality, we jumped right in with a weekly, 90-minute “COVID Check-in” presented by Cisco executives to employees worldwide. These early presentations were very basic, but as we have continued to build out our remote studios, our shows have become more elaborate, incorporating elements like PowerPoint graphics, lower thirds, and roll-on videos. We’re now able to leverage our TelePresence SX80 units to include multiple presenters on separate outputs of the same box, enabling back-and-forth interaction like banter and Q&A sessions.

We are now operating nine virtual studios and six control rooms that run shows concurrently. The remote setup is powered by the TelePresence SX80s, Blackmagic ATEM live production switchers, and the Primestream master control playout and Xchange MAM based on-premises in San Jose. For a typical show, the full complement of staff—TD, producer, technical manager, Primestream operator, graphics operator and audio engineer—all work and collaborate remotely.

Reaching this capability was relatively easy; it involved making sure the remote Primestream operators could easily access the on-prem control points, providing an easy means for remote editors to perform ProRes editing, and making a minimal capital purchase of additional ATEM systems. As we mentioned, the single source of truth already in place and powered by the Xchange MAM made it easy to expand our remote capabilities as needed.

REMOTE WORKFLOWS FOR THE LONG HAUL

More than six months since the onset of the pandemic, we’ve produced more than 1,000 shows remotely—and we just wrapped the 2020 edition of the Cisco Impact national sales meeting. Over the course of three days, our teams played out more than 180 pieces of content to an audience of 22,000 people.

Impact was a ringing success, but it begs the question: Do we see ourselves staying with mostly remote work ows even after the danger of COVID has passed? In the short term, our company has adopted a shelter-in-place policy until June 2021 and possibly longer. In the longer term, we do see a return to in-person events like Impact and Cisco Live, because there’s no getting around the fact that these events are more effective when people can meet face to face.

One thing is certain: as a video operation, we’ve all learned just how much is possible with remote workflows and how little actually needs to be done on-premises. It’s valuable insight, accelerated and sharpened by a short-term, acute need. Cisco has always been a very video-centric company, with top-level leadership committed to connecting over video. That commitment, coupled with our mature technologies and product offerings for seamless collaboration, means our remote capabilities will continue to grow and evolve into the future.

John Williamson is a senior manager at Cisco TV for the Global Engineering Worldwide Sales and Marketing Team. For more information, visit www.cisco.com.

For more information, visit www.primestream.com. 

MIAMI—Primestream and Blackmagic Design have worked together to integrate the Xchange media asset management and production asset management platform with Blackmagic’s DaVinci Resolve 17. Blackmagic President Dan May says that this is the first true integration of MAM/PAM with an advanced color grading and NLE platform.

The integration of the two units is meant to drive advanced content creation workflows by giving DaVinci Resolve users direct access to Xchange libraries and by enabling full round-trip content exchanges between the MAM/PAM system and DaVinci Resolve.

By using the DaVinci Resolve integration SDK, Primestream has developed an Xchange Creative Panel for Resolve that allows content editors to perform content management tasks without leaving the DaVinci Resolve environment. Users can search for media and projects held in Xchange. They can also import media with markers and subclips from Xchange to DaVinic Resolve, as well as export a media sequence from DaVinci Resolve and register it to Xchange.

For more information, visit www.primestream.com.  

MIAMI—Newsmax TV is deploying Primestream’s Xchange and Media IO software for a comprehensive media asset management (MAM) system and video recording and playout solution, Primestream said.

The Primestream technology will link Newsmax’s facilities in New York City and Boca Raton, Fla., bringing greater efficiencies to the broadcaster’s local and remote video operation and enable full-HD broadcasts with higher quality and greater flexibility, the company said.

"Primestream is well-known as a premier provider of asset management and automation software solutions for media production, and its solutions were the ideal choice for our operation," said Walter Raps, senior vice president, broadcast operations and engineering, Newsmax TV.

The Primestream Xchange enterprise MAM platform enables NewsMax production teams in New York City and Boca Raton to collaborate on media assets and distribute content both online and over the air. Integrated with the Newsmax newsroom computer system, Media IO enables simultaneous recording and editing of content from both IP and SDI sources. It also offers fast, easy real-time transcoding to enable integration of these sources into live production workflows, the company said.

The Newsmax TV cable news channel reaches nearly 70 million U.S. MVPD homes. It is also available for free through 150 million OTT devices and platforms.

More information is available on the Primestream website.

MIAMI—Primestream has announced updates to its Media IO IP-based recording and playout solution, which include expanded media ingest and cloud-hosted environment support.

“The most significant aspect of the new Media IO release is its cloud integration features, which give our customers even greater flexibility by allowing them to move key live baseband ingest and video production workflows off-premises,” said company CEO Claudio Lisman.

Updates to Media IO Server include 4K UHD capture, which provides users with a single capture platform for both HD and 4K UHD signals thereby simplifying and unifying their workflows, Primestream said.

Media IO Server also offers newly expanded format support for real-time video editing with the addition of Apple Final Cut X and Adobe Premiere Pro support. The application’s ability to capture IP sources live in real time means editors can preview live streams and edit them within an NLE system even as the video feed is being captured, it said.

Among the updates available for Media IO Desktop are the ability to monitor up to 12 channels—twice the previous limit—and a redesigned user interface based on client testing and feedback that’s easier to use and more intuitive when it comes to triggering recordings and encoding, the company said. 

Media IO supports both on-premise and cloud recording. It is able to capture content from any IP stream, camera or broadcast source, including NDI, HLS, RTSP and SDI while encoding ProRes, XDCAM, AVC-Intra, DVCPro and H.264 format video on the fly.

The application, available for both Windows and macOS, provides for capturing and monitoring baseband and network signal paths throughout any facility. It also captures live feeds from non-baseband sources, including bonded cellular devices and IP video encoders.

More information is available on the company’s website.

MIAMI—Primestream is the latest company to join the SRT Alliance, a collaboration of companies working on the development of the Secure Reliable Transport protocol to overcome the challenges of low-latency live streaming.

SRT is a free, open-source video transport protocol and technology stack originally developed by Haivision for the delivery of high-quality, secure, low-latency video across the public internet. Haivision founded SRT Alliance in 2017 and the group now has more than 400 member companies.

Primestream’s Media IO live ingest, playout and transcoding platform integrates SRT streams into live production and distribution workflows. The unit can ingest multiple SRT streams from IP encoders, remote surveillance cameras or drones and monitor them without the use of video monitors or a routing switcher. Each stream can be transcoded in real time into formats like AVC, H.264, XDCAM, DNxHD or ProRes.

“IP-based stream production workflows are the wave of the future for all types of media enterprises, but a critical success factor is the ability to transport high-quality, low-latency video in a secure and reliable manner,” said Claudio Lisman, president and CEO of Primestream. “That’s why we are happy to be working with the SRT Alliance in its groundbreaking efforts to create an open-source video transport protocol and to introduce SRT solutions like Media IO.”

For more information, visit www.primestream.com.  

MONTREAL—Grass Valley, Evertz, Xilinx and Primestream have joined the SRT Alliance, taking the number of members to more than 400, the alliance announced.

Originally developed by Haivision, SRT (Secure Reliable Transport) is a low-latency video streaming protocol. It makes possible remote and cloud-based high-performance video workflows, overcomes packet loss and adds security with sophisticated encryption, the alliance said.

“We’re excited to join the SRT Alliance to support SRT as a widely adopted industry standard,” said Neil Maycock, senior vice president Strategic Marketing & Playout at Grass Valley. “SRT is a perfect fit for our strategy at Grass Valley as we continue to innovate and focus on future-proofing our customers’ workflows as they transition from SDI to IP and adopt cloud-based solutions, where latency, security and connectivity are key.” 

Evertz is adding SRT to its “end-to-end” portfolio of broadcast production products, said Jatinder Barmi, company product manager of compression products, adding that the protocol enables “low latency video throughout the broadcaster’s workflow.”

Xilinx’ director, Business Development, Video Solutions, Sean Gardner said the company will collaborate with the alliance to provide solutions that “will reduce end-to-end latency, increase security and improve the overall QoE for consumers.”

Calling IP-based stream production workflows “the wave of the future,” Claudio Lisman, president and CEO of Primestream, said the ability to transport high-quality video with low latency in a secure and reliable way is “critical.”

“That’s why we are happy to be working with the SRT Alliance in its groundbreaking efforts to create an open-source video transport protocol and to introduce SRT solutions like Media IO,” he said.

More information is available on the SRT Alliance website.

Brought on suddenly by the coronavirus pandemic, the new normal of remote workflows has been getting a lot of press lately—but the truth is that media enterprises have been moving toward more decentralized operations for some time now. Emerging technologies such as IP and the cloud have ushered in a whole new era of seamless collaboration among team members working from remote locations across the globe. And the benefits are so compelling that it’s a safe bet that remote collaboration workflows will continue to expand, long after the current crisis has passed. 

In this article, we’ll take a look at the drivers for remote collaboration and the tremendous advantages to media operations. We’ll also present some strategies for building a technical foundation to support remote collaboration in the long term.

CLEAR ADVANTAGES

There are plenty of compelling reasons for media operations to move toward remote collaboration workflows on a permanent basis. We see three key factors at play: reduced costs, global creativity and new levels of localization for global audiences. Let’s break them down. 

• It’s easy to see why decentralized workflows can bring about tremendous cost reductions. With the lion’s share of creatives collaborating remotely, organizations can get by with a smaller physical footprint at headquarters and therefore lower opex. In addition, capex is reduced through the use of key enabling technologies such as hybrid cloud computing and SaaS-based solutions. If there’s anything the pandemic is proving, it’s just how little money broadcasters need to spend to mount seamless and professional productions, with most contributors—even on-air talent—working from home and only a limited crew of engineers in the studio.  
• Global collaboration spurs creativity in content creation through the ability to leverage contributors from all over the world—each of whom can offer top expertise, unique insights and a regional perspective. Rather than being limited to the editors, producers, colorists and other contributors based at headquarters, operations are able to expand to a virtually unlimited talent pool that brings huge diversity in ideas, perspectives and creative approaches. Global audiences are the winners, with a richer array of high-quality content from which to choose. 
• Speaking of those global audiences, remote collaboration enables productions to take their content localization capabilities to new levels. When we’ve thought of localization in the past, it usually meant captioning and/or audio dubbing the original content in the local language. But now, working with teams of remote contributors—editors, camera operators and script writers, for example—productions are able to produce truly local versions of content that raise the engagement level of audiences in those areas, reflecting their own tastes and expectations. 

STRATEGIES THAT GO THE COLLABORATIVE DISTANCE

Given those drivers, what are the technical requirements and approaches that will help media enterprises make a successful leap to remote collaboration workflows? From Primestream’s perspective, these boil down to the following: 

• A hybrid cloud infrastructure that provides the flexibility for the operation to leverage both on-premises and cloud resources as appropriate for different elements of the production. For example, rendering could be performed in the cloud and playout could be done on premises, or vice versa. 
• A centralized management platform that allows the operation to track, analyze and monitor every production and gives a clear view of assignments, tasks and status updates across all globally dispersed contributors. Consider a production house with 15 different projects in various stages of production. At a glance, producers can see which contributors are involved, what tasks they’re assigned and how close they are to completion without having to be concerned with where the contributors are physically located. 
• A SaaS business model that enables ad-hoc workflows, offering the ability to grow dynamically and offer a menu of features and capabilities tailored to the production; for instance, a stable of local editors to work on footage only for the duration of a specific event. Here’s where the cloud really comes in, offering the ability to spin up a temporary workflow and then spin it down when the event is over, rather than having to maintain expensive on-premises equipment that sits idle when not needed.
• A one-stop shop for tools of the trade. Most SaaS offerings today only offer a few pieces of the overall production puzzle, such as remote editing in the cloud. But we foresee a future when an entire live production service might be available through a cloud SaaS model, with the ability to segment different capabilities and parcel them out to various remote contributors. By the same token, different contributors would be able to access any of the tools they need from a common service, perhaps on an a la carte basis, rather than having to piece together disparate solutions from different vendors. 

SUMMING UP

Given the current global health crisis, these are uncertain times for our industry. But one of the silver linings might well be a chance for broadcasters and other media operations to experience first-hand just how effective remote collaboration can be—and how much money they can save, without having to compromise on the richness and quality of content. There’s no doubt that remote collaboration workflows will continue to grow into the future, supported by ongoing innovation in hybrid cloud and SaaS solutions.

Namdev Lisman is executive vice president at Primestream.

LAS VEGAS—It’s all about the creative process for Primestream at the 2020 NAB Show, as the company will have on hand a number of tools that are designed to streamline and simplify content creation.

A new part of Primestream’s lineup of products for content creation is Creative Bridge, a Mac OS application that offers workflows between creative tools and Primestream Xchange. Creative Bridge gives Final Cut Pro X and Avid ProTools users access to folders of media to and from the MAM while adding metadata and maintaining folder structure.

Primestream further adds to its flagship Xchange platform with a new collaboration with Blackmagic Design, the Xchange DaVinci Workflow Panel. This panel is natively integrated with DaVinci Resolve via a Blackmagic Workflow Panel SDK, giving users direct access to content libraries housed in Primestream’s asset management platform. It also supports full roundtrip workflows between DaVinci Resolve and Xchange.

New Visual Watermarking technology will also get a spot in the Primestream booth. This platform allows for watermarks to be displayed dynamically based on the active user viewing the video. The watermark includes the name of the user, IP address of the system and a date and time stamp. Dynamic positioning helps prevent the use of masking to remove a watermark.

The show will also serve as the launch of a native Newsroom Framework with Octopus NRCS integration. The Newsroom Framework is built directly into the Primestream Workflow Server core, allowing for tight integration with newsroom platforms, delivering stability and supporting quick turnaround for new newsroom features.

In addition, Project Dashboard is set for a show debut, giving users the ability to view the status of all projects across Xchange throughout the supply chain.

Primestream will be set up at booth SL2605 for the 2020 NAB Show, running April 18-22 in Las Vegas.

For more information, visit www.primestream.com. 

ALEXANDRIA, Va.—Despite differences in features and distinctions in functionality, the technology at the center of digital content management is aiming for one clear, single goal: To give media companies the ability to thrive amongst the myriad disruptions our industry is experiencing.

Today, the second screen has morphed into the first screen. And now that consumers are calling the shots when it comes to watching whenever and wherever they choose, technology central to content creation and management has to lead the way.

It’s a challenge for us all, but also an opportunity, said Ray Thompson, director of broadcast and media solutions marketing at Avid.

CREATING OPPORTUNITIES

A key opportunity is to find a better way to monetize the connections that are happening on those small screens, especially on social media. According to a recent Pew Research Center report, about two-thirds of Americans today get news from social media outlets. A majority of those Americans cite convenience as a key reason why they consume news from social media sites. Another key reason behind social media’s popularity: speed of delivery.

That’s what led companies like Avid to introduce solutions like MediaCentral | Publisher, a new SaaS offering designed to increase viewership and engagement across social media and digital OTT platforms for news and sports.

“With [this solution] Avid has significantly improved our customers’ ability to be first to deliver news on digital platforms,” Thompson said. The company has partnered with Wildmoka, a French software company, on this particular MediaCentral solution.

In today’s day and age, being first matters. Being first to deliver content to readers not only improves their ability to engage viewers, but it also drives consumers to their digital platforms and increases digital revenue, Thompson said.

This SaaS offering provides auto transcoding, which means media companies do not have to set up separate rendering farms for transcoding. “Once the content is in the cloud, they can do things like resize the aspect ratio of content, add graphics for different mobile platforms and customize branding,” Thompson said. MediaCentral users can log content, search for and access media, create a highlight sequence in the timeline, and then publish across social and digital platforms.

Another clear goal for media companies: engagement.

The Pew Research report found that 43 percent of those consumers surveyed use social media sites as a pathway to news, with Facebook, YouTube and Twitter leading the way. From there, consumers are often linked directly to a content creators’ news site and conversely connected to pre-, mid- and post-news ads as a way to more meaningfully direct advertising to viewers.

“Customers [are] learning that they need to be first and they need to really go viral,” Thompson said. “They become a source for breaking that news. They can do that and can drive views and drive traffic to their own ads.”

Helping media companies address that new business reality is a key goal. At the recent 2019 IBC show in Amsterdam, a number of technology firms showcased improved content creation toolsets designed to help customers deal with increasingly complex issues such as workflow and business opportunities.

Primestream, for one, highlighted its new Creative Extensions solution, which connects video, graphics and visual FX teams with tools to locate, manage and import assets and projects from within the NLE, making it so that users never need to leave their Adobe Photoshop, After Effects or Apple Final Cut Pro X systems when creating and managing content.

Others like Vizrt are introducing software-defined visual storytelling platforms designed to revolutionize how virtual studio sets and augmented reality graphics are designed and combined with live video. At IBC, Vizrt introduced Viz Engine 4, a graphics engine and video compositing platform for live video productions. The system handles graphics creation, virtual environment development, augmented reality control system and template-driven workflows for storytelling flexibility.

“For us at Vizrt, the key qualities that our customers are looking for [when it comes to content creation and distribution] are led by a director-based user interface that removes layers of complexity and gives the optimum ability for quick reactions, better storytelling and [the ability] to execute a complex error-free production,” said Víctor Josué Quintana Ramos, technical sales specialist for Vizrt.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

As the industry looks past storytelling and toward the challenges of improving content management workflow, the promise of AI appears again and again.

“Artificial intelligence provides the opportunity to systematically learn about the content the data represents and use that knowledge to make better, more efficient decisions about the workflow,” said Namdev Lisman, executive vice president of Primestream.

The newest version of the company’s Elastic Data Viewer, which was shown at IBC, is a solution that integrates with AI platforms in an effort to enrich content with facial and object recognition, speech-to-text transcription and sentiment analysis, he said.

“For decades, media content has been a hand-crafted product, relying heavily on skilled artists and craftspeople to use their time and talents for every step—even the trivial, mundane and repetitive steps,” he said. AI is now offering similar productivity opportunities. While media management has previously been about collecting, tracking and utilizing information about data files, any information about the content in those files relied on some level of human interaction—including the time and potential for error that comes along with it, Lisman said.

Primestream is using AI to provide media companies a means of using AI metadata as a driver of workflow activity, Lisman said.

“And the more we know about the content, the more efficient we can make the workflow,” he said. “This is the greatest benefit of AI in media production: using compute power to discover useful, interesting or necessary moments in content, and freeing up humans to make better decisions about what happens next.”

One successful project scenario occurred when AI was used in the video production department for the Organization of American States (OAS). AI technology was used to recognize every representative speaker within any video generated from any OAS session. Audio content would be concurrently transcribed from multiple languages and then redelivered to 35 OAS member countries, which includes every country in the Americas.

“This is a significant improvement over the previous manual process, which could take up to 30 days to accomplish the same tasks,” Lisman said.

Integrating AI is also a priority for Vizrt, which moved to keep its Viz Engine 4 an open, collaborative system. “What this brings to the table to the vast community of developers and designers are … the possibilities of using physics and using AI in the gaming engine,” said Gerhard Lang, CTO of Vizrt.

A number of other technology companies are also redoubling their efforts to focus on review and quality control technologies. That was the thinking behind Telestream’s new tools for live streaming of events and sports and how media companies can monitor quality at each point in the distribution pipeline.

The company showcased the newest version of its OptiQ Monitor at IBC, a quality of service and experience measuring system that can be inserted virtually in the media distribution pipeline for live streaming. The OptiQ framework includes the OptiQ Channel, an integrated monitoring system. Conversely, the new OptiQ Monitor works within any public cloud data center, allowing a customer to specify the type of monitoring probes needed in that data center. According to Primestream, the system begins QoS and QoE monitoring of a customer’s live streaming channels and gives that user the ability to observe how their CDNs are performing across multiple geographies.

Most importantly, the system allows a company to pinpoint degraded performance and take steps to improve it before a viewer gets distracted and stops watching.

“[The system] provides real-time identification of critical delivery faults like CDN cache performance issues, missing ABR variants, content availability problems, live content quality measurement and compliance,” said Ken Haren, director of product management at Telestream.

“This delivers live visibility into what may be impacting audience engagement concurrently across many regions—pinpointing degraded performance and remediation steps before viewers tune out,” he said.

That same goal was in place for Primestream with the release of ReviewHUB, a solution that shares and collects feedback on media across an organization and with external collaborators. The system uses privacy controls like watermarking, password protection and time specific expiration, and integrates those within the ReviewHUB platform.

As content creator continue to search for the best pathways to thrive in today’s fractured media market, technology is providing answers in the form of AI integrations, QoS monitoring, SaaS offerings and software-defined virtual storytelling. Yes, consumers are now calling the shots when it comes to when and where to watch. But today’s content creation and management technology is helping to lead the way.

MIAMI & WASHINGTON—The Organization of American States, a regional organization that is made up of 35 member countries, is aiming to improve its capability to deliver its media assets, and to do so has tapped Primestream’s Xchange platform to help catalog the assets.

Xchange will be integrated with AI so that it can recognize every representative speaker within any video generated from a session of the OAS. The audio will also be transcribed from multiple languages. Xchange will operate in a cloud-based architecture so that it can extend access to its video content to its offices across the Americas and have the content be searchable using metadata, as well as facial and text recognition.

OAS reports that its previous manual process could take up to 30 days to deliver materials.

MIAMI, Fla. — Primestream will demonstrate the next generation of its Dynamic Media Management platform at IBC2018. The platform features new solutions for IP video capture and delivery covering professional and consumer formats, a cloud-based review and approval system, robust 4K workflow, public APIs to integrate third-parties into the Xchange platform, and a new configuration framework for quick and easy installations. The next generation of Primestream’s Dynamic Media Management platform is built with features needed to manage sports, enterprise and broadcast workflows from capture through delivery.

[Read: Tata Communications, Primestream Partner On Cloud-Based MAM]

Primestream will highlight enterprise-grade Media Asset Management in the Cloud through a cloud-based version of its Xchange MAM solution in conjunction with Tata Communications’ cloud storage platform and high-performance Video Connect network. The service also features advanced file acceleration and an expandable object storage solution suitable for disaster recovery or content archiving.

Primestream will also demonstrate the latest in VR/360 asset management, an updated Adobe Premiere Pro extension panel that features a new project versioning system, improvements to archival workflow and lifecycle management with cloud and tape storage providers, in addition to “under the hood” improvements for better performance and reliability, according to the company.

Primestream will hold demonstrations in Stand 7.C18. The IBC2018 show is Sept. 13–18, in Amsterdam. For more information or to register, visit www.ibc.org.

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MIAMI & MUMBAI, INDIA—Tata Communications, a digital infrastructure provider based in India, and Primestream, a provider of dynamic media management, have joined forces to launch an enterprise-grade Media Asset Management (MAM) solution in the cloud that enables broadcasters, content owners and enterprises to capture, produce, manage and deliver media content.

Since it combines a cloud-based version of Primestream’s Xchange MAM solution, with Tata Communications’ cloud storage and high-performance Video Connect network, the companies claim the new media management platform enhances metadata-driven workflows—including video production, file sharing, editing and publishing—while supporting seamless global collaboration. It also enables advanced file acceleration and an expandable object storage solution, which permit disaster recovery or content archiving.

[Read: NAB Show Exhibitor Viewpoint—David Schleifer, COO, Primestream]

“Sports, entertainment and news organizations are under pressure to bring their global audiences more and more content, live, 24/7, across different digital platforms, and in new formats, such as UHD and live 360-degrees,” said Brian Morris, Vice President and General Manager, Media & Entertainment, Tata Communications.

“In this high-pressure environment, it’s no longer viable for production teams to work in silos, with files scattered around on different hard drives across geographies. Our joint offering with Primestream unifies and simplifies Media Asset Management from capture to distribution, helping to meet audiences’ insatiable appetite for new video content, and more powerful viewing experiences.” 

TV TECHNOLOGY:What do you anticipate will be the most significant technology trend at the 2018 NAB Show?

DAVID SCHLEIFER: The NAB Show always has two tracks, delivery of long-promised technology that you can actually start to plan on deploying, and new trends that catch everyone’s attention. We expect AI to continue to be the focus on new ideas and new thinking, while we expect IP, 4K to push customers towards systems that deliver solutions to their real-world problems.

TVT:What will be your most important product news?

SCHLEIFER: We have been working hard to optimize and rebuild our system throughout, and this year it allows us to deliver very strong IP-based workflows capturing and publishing content in a wide array of formats and codecs. We are also delivering new cloud-based solutions like Review and Approval along with complete 4K workflows.

TVT:How is your new product different from what’s available on the market?

SCHLEIFER: Our solutions can be deployed in several ways, in a traditional on-premise installation, or hybrid with cloud-based components, or completely in the cloud. Combined with our new APIs and built-in scripting and configuration tools, we are more capable of solving customer problems with solutions that fit their needs.

TVT:What is it about the NAB Show that brings you back every year?

SCHLEIFER: The NAB Show provides us with the opportunity to reach the largest number of key prospects and customers in the same location. Our effort is to stand out amongst our peers and to gain the opportunity to educate the industry about how we can help them accomplish their goals.

LAS VEGAS—Here’s an extended preview of some of the products that will be on display from eight exhibitors:

Broadcast Pix

Take control anywhere with the BPswitch family of integrated production switchers. Broadcast Pix leads the industry with its control-over-IP capabilities. Produce your live programming from a traditional control room, or use a customizable browser-based interface on your mobile device.

With the BPNet IP ecosystem, powered through the ioGates cloud-based media management platform, BPswitch delivers secure, full-motion video and complete access to all your sources and workflow tools. And because it only requires a typical internet connection, BPswitch is a cost-effective solution for remote unmanned studios. Get up to 22 SDI inputs and 12 outputs, with eight channels for clips and graphics and four customizable BPview multi-view outputs.

Every BPswitch system includes NewBlueNTX 3D motion graphics with hundreds of title styles and templates, plus clip stores, device control, file-based macros, integrated streaming to Facebook Live and other CDNs, and more.

www.broadcastpix.com
Booth: SL8320

Comark

For over 45 years Comark has been a trusted partner of TV broadcasters. For NAB 2018, Comark is announcing the availability of the Parallax solid state liquid cooled DTV transmitter for VHF Band 1 (54-88MHz).

This new model is available to support RF power levels from 4.0 up to 41kW. The new Band 1 version of Parallax shares the common architecture (cabinet, distributed control system, user interface) with the UHF and VHF Band 3 models. It provides the highest reliability and efficiency, while keeping the cost of ownership low. Parallax is manufactured, serviced, and supported out of the company’s MA facility.

www.comarktv.com
Booth: C4309

Florical Systems

Florical introduces a new integrated playout solution called FéniX. The server features SDI and IP I/O options on the same box. Includes integrated MC switching, branding, and DVE effects. The FéniX is powered by Harmonic technology and Florical's enterprise automation suite creating the most comprehensive system on the market.

www.florical.com
Booth: N2524

Fluotec

Fluotec is an award-winning manufacturer of professional LED lighting for Television, Video, Photography and Digital & Film Cinema

For more than two decades the Fluotec vision has been to create precision luminaires that deliver pure white lighting. Fluotec’s sustainable and efficient LED technology has already saved millions of dollars in energy costs for hundreds of television studios around the world.

Fluotec presents “The CINELIGHT Studio Long Throw,” three Models of Constant Output Tunable LED Panels for use in high altitude studios.

These professional fixtures sport very High CRI & TLCI Indexes for accurate rendering of skin tones and stage colors and step-less Halodim 0-100 percent dimming for precise control in a studio lighting environment

Pure White Light = Energy & Cost Savings.

www.flutec.net
Booth: C161

IHSE USA

The Draco tera compact XV matrix for ultra-image 4K is offered in eight to 80 user-configurable I/O ports to support a full range of video formats up to 4096x2160@60Hz and 30bit 4:4:4 color depth. The matrix supports the full line of innovative draco ultra series KVM extenders using Fraunhofer’s Lici codec with low latency and perfect pixel-for-pixel performance. Using the 490 series DisplayPort extender units, users can either create a stretched desktop of 8192x2160 across two 4K displays or run in “clone” mode to show full 4K applications on two screens.

www.ihseusa.com - http://www.ihseusa.com/products/kvm-matrix-switch-compact-xv-fiber.html
Booth: SL10216

Myers

ProTrack empowers broadcast networks, affiliates and independent media companies to acquire, schedule, monetize and distribute content with greater efficiency than ever before. It consolidates all of the roles and responsibilities that go into linear and non-linear distribution, so media facilities can optimize their content and associated opportunities.

ProTrack is a proven solution that provides a single source for critical business data across multiple distributors, departments, technical systems and distribution channels. No matter how much disruption is occurring in the industry, our flexible, adaptable technology platform stays one step ahead—giving you the right data, at just the right time, from a single, centralized source.

ProTrack is built to keep pace with change, making it easier to scale up operations to cater to a growing customer base, cut costs, and monetize content.

For updates on all the Myers products coming to the NAB Show in April, please follow @MyersInVegas on Twitter.

www.myersinfosys.com
Booth: N3711

Primestream

At NAB 2018, Primestream will demonstrate new solutions to capture, edit and transcode live IP streams, a cloud-based review and approval system, robust 4K workflow, public APIs to easily integrate into the Xchange platform and a new centralized configuration management portal for quick and easy installations.

Primestream will also highlight VR/360 asset management, an updated Adobe Premiere Pro extension panel that features a new versioning system, as well as improvements to archival workflow with leading cloud and tape storage providers. The next generation Dynamic Media Management platform is built for ease-of-use with powerful features needed to manage the most complex sports, enterprise and broadcast workflow.

www.primestream.com/nab
Booth: SL12111

TSL Products

With over 1,000 global installations, TSL Product’s TallyMan Advanced Broadcast Control System provides broadcasters with reliable, user-oriented control and dynamic data display. TSL continues to enhance TallyMan’s capabilities with new features and protocols allowing operators to integrate a broad range of broadcast equipment into automated workflows. TallyMan now offers Ember+ protocol support, enabling engineers to intuitively integrate all Ember+ capable third-party devices.

TSL’s updated TallyMan Virtual Panel more effectively enhances operational workflow and flexibility for outside broadcast and transmission facilities with several new control features integrated into the panel’s customizable, drag-and-drop interface. New source selection architecture allows users to access presets at the touch of a button. Operators can also take advantage of improved sliders, rotary encoders and X-Y control to better steer robotic cameras, adjust gain on audio devices and tweak levels on color correctors.

www.tslproducts.com
Booth: N5615

LAS VEGAS—Primestream will be bringing advanced media processing solutions to the 2018 NAB Show, including IP stream ingest, 4K/UHD workflow and integrated review and approval capabilities.

To accommodate the capture, editing and transcoding of any IP source into SD, HD, 4K and VR/360, Primestream updated its core technologies to ingest IP content into single or multiple self-contained file formats and transcode and move it through production, management and delivery.

Primestream supports transcoding into ProRes, XDCAM, DNxHD, AVC-Intra and H.264, as well as capturing HLS, MPEG DASH, RTP/RTSP, RTMP and SMPTE 2022 IP streams. Users can preview proxies and live recordings within a web browser, manage signal-paths using pre-configured presets, create on-the-fly proxies and begin editing with growing streams in Adobe Premiere Pro.

There will also be a new SaaS-based (software as a service) review and approval system that can be integrated with existing Xchange systems. The browser-based solution provides for on-site control and management with integrated communication with the cloud, including annotations delivered to the Xchange platform. Multiple workflows are supported, with user-defined security modes, such as watermarking and expiration dates, to protect sensitive content.

Primestream’s 4K/UHD workflow, meanwhile, covers ingest to playout and users can build on their specific 4K/UHD workflow needs, including HDR pass-through, live preview and proxy generation.

Primestream will release Xchange Public APIs with signatures and client access keys that allow customers to extend Primestream solutions with third-party integration. And a new centralized configuration module enables on-boarding, provisioning and wizard-assisted installation of major parts of FORK and Xchange platforms and workflows.

The 2018 NAB Show takes place in Las Vegas, April 9-12. Primestream will be in booth SL12111. For more information, visit www.nabshow.com.

Read up on all of TVT's NAB Show Sneak Peeks and other 2018 NAB Show news here.   

In life, we are surrounded by cues that make us aware of how we fit in a 3D space. Many of our senses and our reactions to that input are based on survival instincts—the ability to hear someone walk up behind us, to see movement in our peripheral vision, to sense our orientation when we move our bodies or swivel our heads. Our senses produce an awesome amount of data that we seamlessly interpret as we go through the day, getting our morning coffee, driving, walking through crowds, diving into swimming pools and everything that goes along with being a human in the world.

As the technologies and methods used in motion picture storytelling have evolved over more than a century of work, we've learned a new language, a new way to interpret the world around us based on a window into another world: the screen. On that screen, we've become accustomed to jumps in location, perspective, time and space. The screen is sometimes supplemented with surround sound, but usually we're left to our imagination to weave the data we get into human stories.

Close-ups, wide shots, panning, zooming, forced perspective, cutting and many other techniques are established parts of the storyteller's toolkit. Then along comes virtual reality and 360-degree, and suddenly we have a tendency to fall over reaching for things that aren't there. We lose perspective and we are lost.

While there are differences between VR and 360-degree content, both mediums deliver immersive experiences that, like "reality," are able to show events taking place all around the viewer. Because VR/360-degree imagery more closely represents the way humans experience the world—because their immersivity is further removed from techniques of traditional filmmaking—motion picture producers struggle with how to harness them in the service of telling stories.

LET'S GET PHYSICAL
There are several disconnects for us as viewers of virtual reality experiences. A primary one is that we do not physically navigate our way through the world in the VR viewer; we can spin around and look up or down, but we don't have all of the normal cues leading up to our appearance in the environment. We didn't walk into the scene, so we have to look around to get our bearings as if we just teleported in.

Primestream's Xchange Suite now includes support for equirectangular VR/360-degree asset management, enabling media playback and review, with "spatial/360" visual marker annotations to highlight areas of interest in a 360-degree space. Pictured is the Xchange Extension Panel for Adobe Premiere Pro Creative Cloud.

The next obstacle: we can't really move around in 3D space. We are restricted to turning our head to see what's in the 180-degree plane or 360-degree sphere of space directly around us. VR may give viewers some agency to navigate an environment, but it's generally not in the typical manner of walking over to something you see. So we're a little lost. As a result, it takes us time to orient ourselves in what is essentially a static scene with action taking place somewhere that we have to find.

VR is an evolving storytelling medium. The techniques directors have used for more than a century to guide viewers of 2D films are generally not applicable to storytelling in a VR experience. Directors can no longer rely on the fast cuts, zooming and pacing that have worked so well for so long. As a result, too much emphasis is sometimes placed on the novelty of the VR event and too little on inventing new techniques to tell stories in a changing world.

There is a lot of experimentation going on today, and much of it is on the capture side, figuring out how to collect better, more immersive images and stitch them together. We at Primestream are dedicated to managing those files. At its most basic, our tools enable a process where images are captured, descriptive metadata is added to those images, and then a workflow is organized around them.

This puts us right in the middle of efforts to understand how to better tell stories with these new assets, and discussions about the creative process. As creative tools like Adobe Premiere Pro evolve to meet the needs of editors using them, we are evolving methods to manage the data and metadata that adds value to those captured images.

360-DEGREE MAM 
Media asset management (MAM) providers and NLE manufacturers have been chasing ever-changing formats for the past few years, so our workflows have evolved to include format independence, but there is always a limit to the assumptions manufacturers have made about the files they are processing.

A first step to handling 360-degree material is understanding how to deal with equirectangular files (360-degree spherical panoramas). A second step is understanding where there might be VR- or 360-degree-specific information that has been added to a standard format like MPEG. Finally, in order to facilitate an end-to-end workflow, it is important to forge partnerships and develop standards that will be supported in both capture and finishing toolsets.

One of the challenges we face is that capture and delivery formats are in flux, as are standards for how those streams are delivered. Gone are the days when a SMPTE standard for SDI controlled your network infrastructure. Newly built or modernized facilities are embracing file-based workflows and IP-based delivery.

With updates announced at this month's IBC conference, project-centric workflows enable Primestream users and teams to intuitively create, share and collaborate on projects inside Xchange Suite, or via the Xchange extension panel within Adobe Premiere Pro CC. Users can now organize raw footage or easily switch between proxy and high-res source material for effective remote/off-site editing.

In one sense, getting started is simple because manufacturers are leveraging existing formats like MPEG-4 or H.264, but in order to create content that's more immersive, cameras are pushing the limits of what they can capture. If you were happy with 4K before, now you need that resolution in 360 degrees. Each lens, each "eye" on the camera, is capturing 4K that needs to be stitched into a seamless sphere into which the viewer can be inserted. Can 8K per lens be far behind? You also want 3D spatial sound to create an even more connected and immersive experience. Accomplishing all of this requires spatial data and other markers.

We can't force the market in a specific direction, but will need to be there to support users when they arrive. We can participate in partnerships that seem to show directional leadership, like when a camera manufacturer and a codec supplier team up to create an end-to-end workflow, but ultimately we need to be reactive to changes in the marketplace that can come from anywhere. Will there be a shift from equirectangular format to cube maps, to pyramid maps, to something else? We will need to be there if and when it does.

We are no longer engaged in tracking content segments simply with time-based markers; rather, content needs to be marked up in both time and space with directional data—not only when but also where the interesting content is.

We fully expect the requirements for VR/360-degree asset management to continue to evolve as people figure out how to use it to perfect their storytelling techniques over time, and we know that the creative tools will need to move quickly to keep up with that innovative re-imagining of how we tell stories. We are not there yet, but you can already see the early signs that we are creating an exciting new creative narrative.

David Schleifer is chief operating officer at Primestream.

This story first appeared on TVT's sister publication Creative Planet Network. 

MIAMI—Known as a pioneering leader in information technology, Cisco Systems is focused on producing a wide-range of corporate content, including live studio shows, promos, and large-scale events for audiences around the world. In order to more effectively communicate both with its clients and with their 73,000 global employees, Cisco has partnered with Primestream to manage and automate its corporate media operations from capture, through to delivery.

“The selection of Primestream was really driven from the need to archive our media, but we didn't have the expertise in developing world-class broadcast media asset management software,” says Brian McCartney, media manager and solutions engineer at Cisco TV. “We wanted something that was going to bring everything together in a single end-to-end solution: something our producers could use to ingest, manage, archive, and automate our media for output to various systems. Primestream can do all of those things.”

CAPTURE

Cisco TV broadcasts live from the Cisco company headquarters in San Jose, Calif., with all of Primestream software running on their own Cisco Unified Computer System (UCS) rack mounted servers. Primestream’s FORKis used to capture live HD signals from the company’s four main studios, their five on campus event centers, and remote events. Remote productions are connected back to San Jose via fiber and are used when hosting large corporate events like Cisco Live, Partner Summit, and the Global Sales Meeting. These events are hosted in large venues like The Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, Moscone Center in San Francisco, and the San Diego Convention Center.

All video content is recorded in ProRes, and loggers use FORK to tag the content with metadata as it is happening, giving editors with the FORK plugin for Adobe Premiere Pro keywords and markers they can use to search for content. Editing can start while the event is in progress so that as soon as a presentation concludes, content is ready to publish. “This gives us a huge head start on delivering the content” says McCartney.

PRODUCE

CiscoTV’s primary task is to communicate information about Cisco products and processes to the rest of the company. This includes issues dealing with human resources, and training with “virtual teams,” which operate like traditional teams of people but may be spread across different geographic regions, time zones, departments, or organizations.

For example, the virtual team program produces six to eight hours of content per day, four to five days a week, for two to three weeks out of the month during an active season. Their goal is to get product information to the sales engineers so they can efficiently support their clients. “Our programming can be as basic as a webinar or as intricate as network talk show,” explains McCartney. “That’s where Primestream comes in.”

MANAGE

Cisco TV uses FORK to automate its asset management system. “We’re organizing and centralizing the production workflow and tracking the media assets, but we’re also looking to make those assets available for search, review and repurposing,” McCartney said.

Once the content is ingested, automation takes over. The file is encoded and delivered to the Primestream Xchange server; automation then notifies the producer that content is ready to view, download, or mark up with metadata. Any changes made remotely to the proxy content are automatically synced back to the database. “Primestream allows the producers to get into the content and do the things that they need to without any intervention or assistance from anybody on our staff,” said McCartney.

CiscoTV also needed to consolidate 12 years of legacy content, which had previously been archived across multiple formats on tape and on isolated drives. FORK was used to migrate their files to their NetApp SAN, transcode them to ProRes, and to organize the data into “smart folders” where any metadata field is dynamically transformed into properties that can be used to filter, sort, and track content. FORK also created a proxy file viewable in an OS-independent environment.

“Being able to archive our content, get it off the various storage silos, and find it was huge for us,” said McCartney. “The shared storage is the key to our entire system, but FORK is our key to the storage.”

DELIVER

Cisco TV uses FORK Live Assist to play bumpers, trailers, and countdowns into their live broadcasts. FORK is also used to broadcast content to its internal and external network over IP using online webcasting portals like Cisco WebEX. Additionally, Cisco can trigger a FORK automation script that will transcode the native ProRes files into platform-specific codecs with relevant metadata and markers for online publishing to the various portals.

“We’re changing the way we do things for the better at Cisco TV,” adds McCartney. The difference that Primestream makes is in their support and willingness to help us find quick and efficient solutions. We know they have our best interests at heart.”

Robert Lisman is the director of marketing for Primestream.

MIAMI—At IBC 2017, Primestream will demonstrate the next generation of its Dynamic Media Management platform. The new platform is built for ease-of-use with powerful features needed to manage even the most complex sports, enterprise and broadcast workflows—from capture through delivery. For the first time in Europe, Primestream will highlight new versions of Fork and Xchange Suite, loaded with an enhanced User Experience, 4K/UHD workflow, VR/360-Asset Management, web-based metadata tagging, an updated Adobe Premiere Pro extension panel with project-centric workflows, and powerful archival workflows for storing and restoring media from object-based storage providers such as Amazon, SwiftStack, IBM and Cloudian.

“Our next generation of the Dynamic Media Management platform has been well received by the industry and we’re looking for to showcasing it at IBC2017. We are always looking to give our users an easy path to 4K/UHD and VR/360 workflow while addressing the need for teams to collaborate on projects from anywhere,” said Claudio Lisman, President and CEO of Primestream. “We work hard to make sure our solutions are ‘simply powerful’, and enable users to capture, produce, manage and deliver assets more easily than ever before.”

New project-centric workflows enable Primestream users and teams to intuitively create, share and collaborate on projects inside Xchange, or via the Xchange extension panel within Adobe Premiere Pro CC. Users can now organise raw footage or easily switch between proxy and high-res source material for effective remote/offsite editing. Other advances to Xchange include support for new Equirectangular VR/360-Asset Management, enabling media playback and review, with “spatial/360” visual marker annotations to highlight areas of interest in a 360-degree space. Xchange also brings a new module for creating playlists of media assets and exporting for delivery to VOD solutions.

Primestream will also demonstrate Xchange Workspaces at IBC2017. This is a new module for easily building and customising the Graphical User Interface (GUI) based on the different ways people work. Users can also enrich content with Workspaces’ built-in metadata tagging engine that integrates with metadata sources such as the Associated Press (AP) industry-leading metadata platform.

IBC 2017 visitors can schedule time with Primestream at IBC 2017 by contacting the Bubble Communications team. 

LAS VEGAS—At the 2017 NAB Show, Primestream will show new features that expand its Dynamic Media Management platform with new capabilities, such as 4K/UHD and VR/360 asset management. This broad platform—which encompasses Primestream’s Fork media asset management and Xchange Suite collaborative workflow solutions—now provides an easier path to managing and working with 4K/UHD and VR/360 assets.

Within Xchange, new project-centric workflows enable users and teams to intuitively create, share and collaborate on projects inside Xchange, or via the Xchange extension panel within Adobe Premiere Pro CC. Users can now organize raw footage or switch between proxy and high-res source material for effective remote/offsite editing.

Xchange now offers Equirectangular VR/360-Asset Management, enabling media playback and review, with spatial/360 visual marker annotations to highlight areas of interest in a 360-degree space. A new module allows media asset playlist creation and export for VOD delivery.

Primestream will also show its platform’s new integration with third-party solutions, such as Amazon S3 and SwiftStack for object-based storage, file-based quality control (QC) with Baton by Interra, high-speed file transfers with Aspera and FileCatalyst, seamless transcoding with Elemental and Telestream, as well as Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid Media Composer, and Apple Final Cut Pro X nonlinear editors.

The 2017 NAB Show takes place in Las Vegas, April 24-27. Primestream will be in boothSL10216. For more information, visit www.nabshow.com.

BUCHAREST, ROMANIA—Antena TV is a suite of HD channels launched by Intact Media Group, a media platform in Romania seen by more than 10 million viewers nationwide each day.

Antena TV’s Mihai Moga uses FORK for on-air and online distribution. Founded in 1991, the group now consists of six TV stations, two radio stations and a major online presence that includes websites and video-on-demand services.

With so much content needing to be created and distributed both on-air and online simultaneously daily, we have relied on the Primestream FORK platform since 2005 to handle all of our studio automation and content management activities in standard definition (576i).

Now we are relaunching all of our channels in HD (1080/50i) with a major upgrade of our production facilities that includes new software for our FORK system, which supports our production, postproduction, and OTT on-demand services.

UP TO ALL TASKS

Primestream’s FORK system is continuously upgradeable and its asset management tools work in a single, integrated software suite we use across all of our production, post-production and playout operations. We use the FORK Production Suite, FORK MAM and FORK social modules to increase productivity and foster collaboration among our creative staff. Integrated tightly with our ENPS electronic news system, our staff can find material stored on our centralized 600TB XSAN and connected Apple servers, begin editing daily news segments immediately upon ingest, and then send them for playout via the same FORK interface.

FORK can ingest 12 live HD feeds simultaneously or import from the Panasonic P2 cards used in the field and in the studio. This footage is then used by 20 Apple Final Cut Pro X and Adobe Premiere Pro nonlinear editing stations connected to the XSAN via fiber-optic paths before final playout. We can also automatically export each program to our OTT service and have it ready for viewing within minutes. We send live ingesting feeds directly to the FORK Live Assist software in our production control room for playout, while also sending content to air using FORK Master Control Playout.

Primestream integrates with leading manufacturers and off-the-shelf hardware, so we have all the flexibility and control over our workflow that we need. We broadcast 26 channels of live HD programming daily; 13 channels play from the XSAN and 13 from Harmonic MediaGrid. We also utilize Harmonic playout servers, a SAM routing switcher, Snell Kahuna switcher, Evertz, Riedel, Vizrt and a variety of other solutions—all integrated with FORK.

The FORK system also allocates each file to the individual working on a project and has allowed us to design different workflows for the individual needs of our different news and entertainment shows.

ACCESSIBLE FOR ALL

The biggest advantage of FORK is it enables us to integrate many of the tasks associated with production, postproduction, and playout. Any authorized person has full access to all of the elements living on the servers that they need to produce or review a story or entertainment program.

The Primestream FORK system is the most complete media asset management and automation system available. All aspects of our operations have benefitted from the FORK system and will continue to do so into the future.

Mihai Moga has been in broadcast since 1998 and at Antena TV for 11 years. He can be reached atmihai.moga@antenagroup.ro.

For more information, please visitwww.primestream.comor call 305-625-4415.

MIAMI—Primestream is having its Xchange Suite system get in on the virtual reality trend, announcing that it will now carry asset management support for VR/360 content. These new features will enable capture, production, management and delivery of VR/360 assets in the Xchange system.

The VR/360 dynamic media management offers features that include proxy video generation at preselected qualities; the ability to preview content in 360-degrees; search for reference markers by keyword; navigate in X/Y mode; zoom in with Xchange 360-degree; and the capability to search within a 360-degree video and locate metadata specific key points with Xchange.

Xchange’s new VR/360 capabilities are now available.

MIAMI—Primestream recently supplied a content management and automation system to the digital media and broadcast company Vice Media. The newly installed system is designed to help Vice manage its workflows from program preparation to final distribution.

For Vice Media, the new Primestream system is required to integrate Vice’s existing workflow, which features third party systems for non-linear editing, production management systems, archival and delivery workflows. The system also had to be scalable for future growth of digital distribution, as well as the global launch of Viceland and the upcoming show “Vice News Tonight” on HBO.

To do this, Primestream designed a Dynamic Media Management system based around its Xchange platform. This enables Vice to access, publish and control content via its web interface and Fork automation platform. The production teams are able to manage the distribution of content to multiple platforms and screens.

MIAMI—Primestream will use its time at the upcoming 2016 NAB Show to highlight its Dynamic Media Management technology that integrates workflow from capture, production and management through to delivery of assets. In addition to new versions of its Fork and Xchange systems, Primestream will display new virtual reality/360 workflows, 4K enhancements, MXF workflows, and enhanced integration with Adobe, Avid and Final Cut Pro systems.

The latest version for Fork, v5.5, now offers third-party traffic system support with solutions for metadata exchange between traffic, MAM and automation. Consumers can utilize metadata generated by traffic systems in the Fork acquisition, production, archive and playout modules. The new version of Fork comes with Primestream’s metadata exchange, allowing users to add optional metadata driven newsroom and real-time sports-data feed integration.

With its Xchange v5.0, Primestream is introducing project centric workflows, enabling the creation, sharing and collaboration of post-production projects inside Xchange or using a built-in plug-in for Adobe Premiere Pro. Xchange also supports Equirectangular Virtual Reality/360 media playback and review, as well as direct API integration with Telestream’s Vantage for automated transcode workflows.

Primestream will be located at booth SL10261 during the 2016 NAB Show, which takes place from April 16-21 in Las Vegas.

MIAMI BEACH, FLA.—At the New World Symphony, we had a problem. We had years of content, thousands of recordings and images of the academy, faculty and guest artists in action, but there was no way for us to access it for either educational or marketing purposes.

Co-created by conductor Michael Tilson Thomas in 1988, NWS was founded as a post-graduate academy for promising young musicians, to prepare them for careers in classical music. It’s a prestigious program, where our alumni go on to work for professional orchestras, ensembles and institutions throughout the world.

New World Symphony Wallcast concert, aided by Primestream’s DAMNO UNIFORMITY
From the beginning, our Fellows have worked with leaders in the classical world, and these interactions are invaluable. We’ve taken countless pictures and recorded a lot of audio and video, but we had no way to put these assets to use because they were difficult to catalog and locate as needed.

Our marketing team was also frustrated because they needed to produce multimedia presentations for fundraisers or share with patrons and media outlets.

To do this, we needed to be able to access content, including still images, PDFs, and audio and video recordings. But each department used different software and hardware, and had different cataloging conventions, making the process very inefficient. If someone in marketing wanted to review video footage from a rehearsal, the video department would have to locate and play the clip in its entirety for the marketing team, which interrupted their own workflow and tasks.

In 2012 we decided it was time for a unified solution that handled all our formats in one location and made everything readily accessible to all our staff. We did not know it at the time, but we were talking about a centralized digital asset management platform.

A SINGLE SOLUTION
We chose Primestream’s FORK and Xchange suite platforms. With FORK, we can ingest and playback live HD feeds, and the video editors utilize FORK integration with Adobe Premiere Pro to search and edit content. Xchange is the access point for PR/marketing/sales to view content, using the Xchange Web client, thus eliminating the need to contact the production team to make content available. This has greatly streamlined things, as well as provide a very user-friendly review and approval workflow. For distribution, we can now publish content to Vimeo using Xchange’s native API integration with the social media platform.

Now all original content lives in the digital asset management system, giving us a better way to collaborate with others and allowing us to see everything we have available.

Working with Primestream, I found that they didn’t come into this looking for a customer to which they could sell a product and walk away. I liked that there was an interest in actually having a partnership and providing a solution. And they had all the DAM functionality we needed.

Luis Quintero has been the director of information technology for New World Symphony since 2013, where he manages the technology department’s operations. Although primarily focused on corporate data, he also works with all departments throughout the organization to help guide decisions where technology is concerned. He can be contacted atLuis.Quintero@nws.edu.

For more information, visitwww.primestream.comor call 305-625-4415.