The pandemic has massively accelerated the demand for streaming video services, with audiences spending more time at home. In France for example, the SVOD market grew by 43% in 2020 (source: CNC-GFK), and the trend is quite similar in most countries.

As a consequence, the broadcast and entertainment industry had to face a new challenge: produce more content, with fewer resources available on site, and adapt this content to an international audience.

This situation has therefore highlighted the need for tools that allow media professionals to work together, in an efficient way, to continue preparing and exchanging content with partners, quickly delivering programmes to audiences, etc

What if the collaboration in the cloud between production, post-production houses, broadcasters, etc was the essential solution to manage media content quickly and efficiently, regardless of location? Without forgetting the ecological issues, which are of prime importance today!

Digital tools but still manual loop

The days when digital tools and the cloud were seen as a scarecrow in the broadcast world are over. The fear of teams being dispossessed of their skills by the cloud seems to be fading, and the advantages and limitations of these new tools are now quite clearly established.

We observe that every company is now using the cloud but as a by-product of their own solution, and not really for full collaboration.

The problem is therefore no longer really in the use of the cloud, but in the ability of the various players involved in the creation and validation of content to work together. Content exchanges for the revision and validation stages are still manual, even with the use of digital tools: multiple emails, sending via file transfer platforms, use of collaborative cloud tools for monitoring revisions (mainly office automation), etc.

All these tools, as efficient as they may seem, are used without any link between them, which leads to manual steps. These steps are still complex to orchestrate, time-consuming, a source of errors, problematic in terms of content security, etc.

The notion of a single, secure and easy-to-use cloud hub, really designed for broadcast processes, is becoming a real issue, in order to work collaboratively on content and deliver it to playout within the given timeframe.

Use case: content preparation from production to distribution

Let's take a simple use case: the preparation of multilingual content intended for broadcasting on a linear or VOD platform.

In simple terms, the process usually involves several actors, from different companies:

• the rights-holder delivers the program to the broadcaster who bought it;
• the broadcaster checks that the program meets the required technical standards and specifications, through a Quality Control step;
• the broadcaster then entrusts the program to a production house or a lab, in order to add subtitles;
• the lab calls on its translators, mostly freelancers, working remotely, each in a different part of the world, possibly in different time zones, and working at their own pace.

All these steps are mainly done on business-specific tools; content is exchanged a bunch of times through unique tools to review, comment, modify, review again, etc, until the final validation.

The lab must ensure that the project runs smoothly, that the timing is respected and that the quality of the work delivered is good, before supplying the final media to the broadcaster.

On this type of project, there are several pitfalls: how to get a global vision of the work of the freelancers? How to make actors from different companies work together, without wasting time? How to manage multiple versions of files without manual errors? How to keep the budget in check and guarantee deadlines? Finally, the question of the ecological cost of all this trade must be asked, at a time when eco-production is a real issue.

To address these pitfalls, Videomenthe delivers a fluid, collaborative workflow via a SaaS platform dedicated to the management of media workflows. The idea is to offer all the necessary tools on a unique platform, which all partners can work on, with specific user interfaces. No need to use multiple different softwares - all is provided in a secured cloud interface, answering the need and specifications of the broadcast industry (and also now the corporate one). The content provider and all the partners involved in the global workflow can monitor and view the different steps through which the content is processed.

The workflow is entirely done on the platform:

• Basically, the broadcaster uploads the file, launches a technical QC step according to its desired test-plan - a step which is managed by the technical team
• Then the file goes through an editorial check, managed this time by the editorial team
• If both technical and editorial checks are ok, the file goes to the transcription & translation steps, managed by the post-prod house / lab
• The translators have access to the file with restricted rights, according to the language they have to manage
• Once they reviewed, corrected and validated the file, the post-production house can validate or ask for additional review if needed
• Once the workflow is finished, the broadcaster can download the ready-to-broadcast content

Example of collaborative content preparation workflow in a broadcast environment

The benefits of such a platform are many:

• A unique platform, to avoid the back and forth of content on external tools
• Simplified, secure and faster content preparation
• A reduction of the ecological footprint of these multiple exchanges (digital does not mean no ecological footprint!)
• A better ROI

Example of collaborative subtitling workflow involving 4 actors (corporate market)

Conclusion

The market continues to evolve and adapt, embracing cloud technologies as an opportunity to ease the way we work, from anywhere, with anyone, whatever the language.

But today, the answer is far away from being just the cloud: multiplying the digital tools is definitely not the ultimate answer. The key is now in the way we work together on these tools, to increase efficiency, productivity and cost-effectiveness with a “green” attitude.

At Videomenthe, we’ve been working on this collaboration axis for more than six years, by offering a cloud-based collaborative media workflow platform, Eolementhe©.

Eolementhe© is true to our DNA: fluidity of workflows, ease of use and collaborative work. Our solution allows a real collaboration between the various stakeholders, capitalizing on the possibilities offered by the cloud tools.

Content producers and media companies are faced with the immense challenge of producing enough premium quality content to meet ever-increasing demand and distribution complexity.

How can Media-oriented Business Process Management technology help streamline the overall content preparation chain, and improve the experience for people involved with the numerous man-in the-middle tasks associated?

In this article, we’ll be touching on some of the aspects that need to be considered to develop modern, advanced automation, orchestration, and collaboration solutions suitable for the content creation industry - with users in mind.

Media travelling from creation, production, ingest, transformation, packaging, distribution, through to consumption defines what we collectively name the Content Supply Chain. It is a complete process to plan, create, manage, process, and deliver content to desired channels and audiences. At present, when content consumption grows, across multiple geographies and with an increasing number of business and distribution models, numerous solutions become necessary to run your operations.

The journey can become very complex to manage, supervise, and scale. In most cases, with the same headcount.

More than with any other industry, the Media Supply Chain is a business process that uniquely includes both systems and users. Most creations require human review and approval for example. Professional tools (storage, asset management, creative apps, collaboration platforms) are already in operation. Workflow automation appears to be more critical than ever to manage efficiently the Content Chain in a fierce competitive environment.

Defining a Content Chain strategy comes with some serious challenges for media companies of all sizes: speed to implementation, internal IT expertise and resources, ease of use for operators, simplicity to integrate with existing systems. At Embrace, we design our solutions and business models considering all these stakes. In fact, all our products meet our mission statement to help companies in their transformation efforts leveraging user-centric applications and low-code design for instant adoption by operators and engineers. We strongly believe this strengthens our customers’ sovereignty by limiting the dependency on the vendor with faster implementation, instant adoption by users, higher quality of deliverables, predictable and reduced costs to maintain the system in operation and manage constant evolutions.

A user-centric approach optimizes processes and improves collaboration

Designing products based on user habits and expectations greatly improves the onboarding and adoption of innovative solutions. The user-centric approach also greatly helps break operational silos by connecting peers in a simple, quick and safe manner - including remote users - making collaboration easier than ever. However complex the workflow, operators should not be exposed to the underlying technological complexity.

Platforms must seamlessly fit in any technical framework

The days of end-to-end solutions in Broadcast are behind us and have given way to best-of-breed and hybrid-cloud architectures. It has become imperative to combine modern IT architecture with clear and readable business models, allowing customers to easily integrate pertinent business tools, scale infinitely at predictable costs, and fully control their information systems. Amongst other things, products should always offer Open APIs, rely on standard protocols and services, and be available on premise, in the Cloud, or in hybrid mode.

Low-code automation allows for easy implementation and personalization

Low-code is a new way to empower customers to build their own media workflows and integrations extremely fast. In fact, complex workflows are drawn instead of requiring line by line coding. All workflows or connectors are reusable, like LEGO® bricks, and are always secure and reliable. Not only is customization made simple when designing media workflows using Low-code initially, but it also makes them extremely fast to adapt once in production. Very limited programming skills are required from the technicians or engineers in charge of maintaining the Content Chain in operation.

When we established Embrace in 2015, we initially launched an automatic promo versioning platform called Automate-IT. We believe the instant market fit came from the fact that the system uniquely satisfied both the creative teams and the engineers alike.

Just before the pandemic, we came to market with a Business Process Management system called Pulse-IT. Unlike with automatic promo versioning, we were not the first company to offer a media-oriented orchestration solution. However, by embracing some of the concepts covered in this article and then translating our vision into the product, Pulse-IT empowers our customers to translate, optimize, execute and monitor any business or broadcast processes simply and quickly. Very complex workflows can be set-up in minutes connecting modern and legacy systems and yet be extremely easy to interact with for any operator in the organization.

Pulse-IT system overview

At the core, Pulse-IT is the orchestration layer accelerating a wide variety of content creation or broadcast processes from ingesting, transcoding, AI-based transcription, metadata mining, asset management, asset utilization, automated content processing or postproduction, packaging, versioning egress to distribution. Pulse-IT excels in breaking down barriers and silos while connecting disparate heterogeneous systems to form a cohesive workflow that increases throughput and simplifies operator use.

How does Pulse-IT contribute to the Content Chain process?

Above is a typical supply chain workflow where raw material is ingested for standardization. The process includes audio quality control and processing, transcoding, metadata indexation, AI services and transfer for distribution to On-demand services, OTT, TV or Direct-to-consumer platforms.

In this case, Pulse-IT can orchestrate all steps, start workflows, and interact with users via HTML customized forms. The system is configured by entering parameters and settings to connect on-line and archive storage, MAMs, PAMs. This gives the ability to simply adapt the orchestration of the Content Supply Chain to all types of environments to serve operational teams efficiently and limit human mistakes.

Content Supply Chain transformation brings many benefits in terms of operational efficiencies and business agility to become a competitive advantage for media companies of all sizes. Automation and optimization can significantly help improve modern media operations, unleash the creativity of talents, ease your user's journey into working with emerging technologies, such as AI and ML.

Content Supply Chain platforms help solve operational workflow pains by implementing user-centric solutions that invite customers to welcome digital transformation positively, because it enhances their own performance. Applications need to connect people and systems at all stages of the business process from Ingest to Distribution to produce large quantities of high-quality content, in different formats, for various audiences.

Broadcasters are no longer the only show in town. If a consumer wants to watch television, there are the disrupters, the digital first companies who started by offering subscription streaming services, and who are now moving into linear channels (and picking up rights to major sports) and adding advertising funding to the mix.

But there are other content sources, too. Sports clubs and federations are offering their own channels via streaming. Houses of worship are using video to engage with their congregations in new ways. At PlayBox we have even provided channel management technology to local government, allowing them to share council meetings and committees, along with features on their work, with the electorate.

For the consumer, these are all television channels. It does not matter if it is a national broadcaster, your church or the local college sports team: they expect it to behave like the television channels we have been watching for eight decades. That means that programmes appear to a published schedule, with no glitches or gaps, and commercials never crash the programmes.

The audience expectation is also that, as well as the scheduled linear feed, they will have access to the content at any time, through a simple to access video on demand service.

But underlying this demand and response, there are rules which remain in force. The intellectual property rights to content may be controlled, so while some can be sprayed out on the internet to anyone who clicks in the right place, others may have geographic and time limitations which have to be observed.

Through a mixture of regulation and common practice, broadcasters have also developed a set of standards. These obviously include decency and the need to restrict adult content to adult audiences. It also means more subtle things like managing advertising to avoid direct clashes – two car brands in one break – and repetition – the same spot in break after break – which just irritates the viewer.

Streaming services will at the very least want to know who is watching, so there must be some level of consumer tracking. If you are charging a subscription then you need a mechanism to collect the money, and turn feeds on and off.

All of this is well understood. The challenge is how to provide all this functionality, affordably and sustainably. Given the multiplicity of production formats, live feeds and delivery platforms, just getting the content to the audience is not trivial. Add all the other layers of CSM, asset management and VoD clients and it all gets very demanding.

For a broadcaster with established technical teams, or for a streaming service disruptor set up with software skills, this is achievable if demanding of resources. For the others – who have good content and a good reason for reaching an audience – it can be so daunting it threatens to derail the project.

Vendors have to find a way of making this happen. That means changing the way we have done things, and moving away from one device per function. Having a piece of electronics running continuously but only actually used for some of the time is just a power drain, an unnecessary addition to your carbon footprint.

It is not enough to say that automation can make all the functionality you need happen. The automation needs to be able to do all these things with the minimum of resources.

To give an example, in the past a broadcaster would localise a service – add some programming and specific commercials – by having a subset of playout facilities in the region. At PlayBox we have been very effective with a device called EdgeBox, which we continue to offer, which sits in the local headend and performs the necessary regionalisation.

But as we move to the cloud, so this regionalisation can be streamlined. We do not need processes running 24/7 if all it is doing is inserting some commercials, and switching to a local feed for, say, the regional news bulletin. Much better to minimise processor demand by only spooling up those facilities when you actually need them.

The converse is that you can now centralise the operation of a global broadcast network, delivering similar content and presentation to multiple countries from one set of controls. The geographic diversity of large-scale cloud providers like AWS means that you still have the advantages of edge servers, but operating in a unified environment.

The true situation is that we are all still in the transitional stage here. There is a great deal of talk about the cloud in our industry, but what AWS and the others are offering is an effectively infinitely scalable set of processors and data stores. It is up to vendors in the media industry to make it work.

That means integrating the functionality from customer management to asset management; from PayPal to transcoding; from app design to channel scheduling. That means packaging all that functionality into user interfaces that are clear, intuitive, and relevant to the people and the work at hand.

Finally, and this is the hard one, it means taking away the complexities of managing cloud services so that users really benefit from the claimed advantages of only paying for what you use. Maximising effectiveness while minimising the use of resources – and thereby minimising both cost and carbon footprint – is the ultimate goal.

Today’s broadcasting landscape is highly dynamic and characterized by non-stop technology innovation, increased competition across different platforms, and rapidly evolving consumer demands. Scale is one of the most pressing issues influencing these factors. New viewing platforms are emerging quicker than ever, and broadcasters need flexible, scalable distribution solutions to keep up with this rapid pace of change.  It’s a top priority for almost all major media companies, yet delivering it efficiently and getting the best content to viewers across numerous digital platforms without heavy and costly infrastructure is a big challenge in the current environment.

An effective combination of strong (not high) investment and robust technology solutions can give media companies precisely what they need. With this in mind, media companies across the whole chain need to make the proper steps to thrive in this unpredictable environment. The decisions they make today will significantly impact how they will perform in the constantly evolving future. Making the right ones will empower them to take advantage of new opportunities.

Maximising the yield from content

One of the major challenges for the industry is making the most of the content assets available. Faced with squeezed ad revenues and the rising cost of content, broadcasters need to maximize the yield from their live and non-live content assets and drive cost savings, while finding new audiences, wherever possible – without compromising service quality and reliability.

Audiences on traditional linear platforms are in decline. Consumers have now migrated toward OTT platforms - both ad supported and subscription based, ensuring that a robust digital distribution strategy can be the key to creating outstanding content that maximizes that yield.

One way to do this is by ensuring that media companies put customization at the heart of their strategy. Today, great content needs to be targeted to deepen platform loyalty and drive viewer engagement. As we continuously see, digital platforms replace traditional cable services as the primary viewing source for many consumers. Connecting with these audiences at a local level with tailored content can act as an essential service differentiator. Whether it is local news, sports, platform-specific or region-specific programming, it is a clear path to retain consumers. A versioning and customization strategy is  achievable without breaking the bank and is a critical strategy to get into the streaming world and grow a fragmented audience.

Looking up at the cloud

Achieving scale in the digital era is complex, and it is one of the hallmarks of the cloud. For many media organizations, it requires both a business and technology shift. Pivoting from CapEx-focused models to OpEx-favored approaches with a cloud-defined technology strategy can help companies increase scalability and business agility, allowing them to spin up services rapidly based on evolving requirements. Said another way - media companies need to experiment to find the right product mix to reach audiences wherever they are.

Boasting impressive data storage capacity, processing power, and networking, these can all be scaled through cloud computing infrastructure quickly and easily.  Scalable cloud architecture is made possible through virtualization. Cloud technology solutions, done right, are highly flexible and can be easily scaled up or down. Workloads, workflows and applications can be distributed across a region or the globe as needed. This ability is perfect  for media companies to meet the fluctuating market demands.

Finding the right partner to make this possible

As mentioned, the cost of investment in such technology is high, and with tighter budgets, this is where the right business strategy can save a company hundreds of thousands. This is where partnering with a company like LTN makes the most sense. Tapping into LTN’s wealth of knowledge acquired over years of experience gained from building a one-of-kind global IP transmission network from the ground up and incorporating that into the capabilities and technical solutions while also understanding the business operations and configurations can help media companies navigate today’s landscape.

LTN is one company at the heart of this intersection of media output. Its award-winning platform, LTN Lift, builds on the dynamic capabilities that media companies need and allows them to automate the creation of multiple derivative versions from a primary linear channel, spinning up secondary channels and integrating live and non-live programming.

A solution like Lift allows companies to adjust programming to fit cross-platform programming requirements or provide tailored, localized content for different audiences. Media companies can provide fresh, local, and engaging content across these OTT platforms and FAST services, optimizing audience reach and monetization.

The right partner also has advantages with the cloud. Through a third party, the cloud providers have all the infrastructure already in place. Prior to hosted and cloud-based solutions like Lift and Arc, scaling with on-premises physical infrastructure would take weeks or months and require tremendous expense, often resulting in lost opportunities tied to time to market.

Media companies should also consider a partner that offers a customer-centric approach. In the constantly busy and unpredictable media world, a good partner can provide 24/7 support from a team of experts and professionals to help maintain quality and consistency - avoiding the apparent downsides of going alone. 

Final thoughts

Spinning up new channels automatically and extending audience reach across digital platforms creates opportunities the industry has never seen before. Overcoming the challenges is not easy, but there is no better time for media companies to act and stay ahead of the curve. Scale is not a buzzword and will only evolve as our industry progresses, and it can be achieved more easily than initially thought. In doing so, media companies will not only expand their reach across digital platforms. They will enjoy the benefits that come with it, including capturing new eyeballs and fueling revenue generation. As we embark on this new era of storytelling, there is no better time to embrace it.

As the Video-on-Demand (VOD) market becomes increasingly competitive, the customisation of the viewer experience has become a key differentiator for media organisations. Viewers have come to expect a highly personalised service: the importance of both great User Experience (UX) and a simple path for content discovery can’t be overstated. Linear channels are also storing more content assets, both archive and new episodes, in the cloud. To ensure content supply chains are running efficiently and to streamline scheduling, content owners need to efficiently tag and track key information about their media.

Metadata plays an important role in this, but there is often a feeling of "more is more", a sentiment that can and does cause challenges further down the line. The over-proliferation of metadata collection can obscure the objectives for gathering it in the first place, but the process of collating ‘good’ metadata is not always simple. There are a number of challenges that arise when collecting and managing metadata on a mass scale, such as informational silos, the needs of different content supply chains, and metadata standards. If not managed correctly, these issues can all feed into a sense of metadata fatigue.

The role of metadata

Put simply, the purpose of metadata is to enable media businesses to make the most out of their content, whether that content is used for on-demand platforms or for linear broadcasting. Content owners and broadcasters now have unimaginably huge catalogues of media that need to be identified and categorised for effective search and discoverability. In addition, now that older content from the archives is being leveraged for monetisation purposes, there is a huge need to identify and categorise not only new media assets, but also older material in the archive. This process will benefit both the end-consumer and the media operations user.

Metadata also has an important role to play in linear broadcasting, when broadcasters need to change scheduling at the last minute, or to remove certain content, or pull whole shows. This may happen when there are sensitivities over a particular political incident or recent news event. As well as being crucial in those kinds of time-sensitive situations, effective metadata is also vital when compiling a collection of particular content from an archive. This could be a compilation focused on a specific person or a theme. Let’s say an actor wins an award and a broadcaster wants to collate past appearances, interviews and other notable points relating to the actor’s life. To do that quickly, metadata needs to be accurate, effective and searchable.

Metadata management

Media businesses typically have lots of different types of assets, each with a range of associated metadata, and managing this is, unsurprisingly, a complex process. In order to manage a media-rich archive at a granular level, media companies really need a MAM system in place to index their catalogue successfully. Then they can run searches, screen the archive, and do things like marking clips and captioning audio descriptions for tagging. Without effective management of the search, annotation and indexing processes, the media archive will quickly become unstable and siloed.

If the metadata recording system isn’t integrated with the whole media production process, there might be a need to use different systems to track different types of content, which is obviously unsustainable because the archives are all interrelated. Not only is this inefficient in terms of duplication, but it can also lead to the proliferation or duplication of metadata about the same person, object, or theme.

Without using a MAM with an intuitive search capability that enables the user to handle, mark, track, and publish rich metadata at scale, the metadata is going to be an inconsistent mess. In that scenario, you would likely see some metadata hosted in one place, some in another place, some that's only attached to the subtitles or audio description files, some that's only attached to one episode in a series, and some attached to each and every episode. It is critical to have a strong search capability at the core of any MAM system.

Good metadata vs. bad metadata

Good metadata is useful metadata, which has a clear purpose and has been collected with clear objectives in mind. Good metadata is about getting to the core of what is really needed. Some metadata is needed for the user to easily discover content, while other metadata is needed because it is useful in the MAM for the media production process.

It is fair to say that any metadata is useless unless it has a purpose. If unnecessary metadata is being logged, it can obscure the useful metadata, making the search process more difficult. In this way, unhelpful, excessive, or duplicated metadata can actually become a hindrance.

Informational silos

There is also an issue of metadata not always being shared both interdepartmentally and also, perhaps more understandably, from one media company to the next. The act of creating metadata is in itself an investment, so there is a reluctance to share metadata with other media companies unless it can be monetised. As content passes through the media chain, the generation of metadata can sometimes be duplicated by different media companies.

Even within a single media company, it is not unusual for some teams to use one metadata recording system then not share that system or metadata with other teams, so the work is duplicated. These high levels of duplication are not efficient for individual media businesses, nor for the industry as a whole, and the terminology used can vary from team to team.

Different content workflows have different metadata needs

If metadata is being recorded for lots of different functions such as indexing, archiving, compliance and QC, it can very quickly proliferate, even if it is being recorded with clear purpose. To get round this, metadata processes need to be made more efficient and more streamlined.

Processes must set out an efficient way to mark, track and publish technical metadata, descriptive metadata, custom metadata, customer specific metadata, and supply chain metadata. Carrying metadata from the point of ingest, to the end product on the MAM platform, is probably the most efficient point in the media supply chain to record metadata but what’s recorded needs to work for all media operators involved in content processing.

Empowering media operators to work efficiently

It is important to empower media operators to use their skills, work efficiently and give the best insights to teams at later stages in the media supply chain. Ideally, a metadata system or process shouldn’t allow operators to take actions that are unhelpful to the metadata process, but this is not always the case. What is important is cooperation, collaboration, and communication. AI tools can be used to assist media operators in tagging of descriptive metadata, to free up their time for more nuanced, skilled input that is required for effective metadata.

It also helps if media operator teams understand why they are tagging metadata. This helps them be more connected and engaged with the workflow, empowering teams in their day-to-day work and giving them a sense of purpose.

Metadata is indeed complex: that is the nature of the beast. Therefore, it is so important to take steps to avoid metadata fatigue. Media companies must make sure that the information collected as metadata is as useful as it can be, and is recorded in such a way to remove duplication and maximise efficiency. If media organisations can streamline this process, metadata can live up to its true potential.

While there seems like an infinite amount of content available on demand, the pinnacle of the broadcast (and now streaming) industry is live broadcasting. Sport is the most obvious source – a UK sports broadcaster is using “it’s only live once” as its tagline at the moment – and big events like the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup can draw audiences of close to a billion worldwide.

But sport is not the only source of live broadcasting. There are plenty of music and entertainment events which are appointment to view: think of the main stage at Glastonbury, or the finals of major reality competitions like Love Island or Big Brother.

Whatever the genre, live broadcasting means getting the content from the location to the broadcast centre. In the case of international events, to many geographically diverse broadcast centres. And, of course, today we expect much more than just a single feed from the event, so the number of circuits grows quickly. The ultimate goal is true remote production, with the cameras and microphones on site and all the production – switching, replays, graphics and commentary – back at base.

But it is only live once, so all these links have to stay live throughout the whole of the event. How can we provide this sort of capacity, reliability, and connection from anywhere to anywhere?

The traditional answer was satellite, but it does not have the capacity for all these requirements. The situation will get worse in time, as the spectrum for C-band satellites is transferred to 5G and future cellular communications.

Major permanent venues will have dedicated, point-to-point fibre installed, although not necessarily with enough bandwidth for large numbers of feeds. For other venues, planning and installing dedicated fibre is a lengthy, disruptive and expensive business.

In either case, the carrier will have invested heavily in its installation, and will want to see a return. Even if a fibre from a football ground to a broadcast switching hub is used for a game every week, that is still only 2% utilisation, which means the fee must be very high when you do need it. Carriers will also insist on long-term contracts: years rather than weeks.

There is a simple solution: the public internet. Find the capacity, and just pay for what you use. This is not as difficult as it sounds: most sports venues are in metropolitan areas, where there is likely to be plenty of dark fibre connectivity available. With the right systems, you simply camp on to the capacity when you need it; release it as soon as you are done.

The problem with using the internet for professional video communications, of course, is that it really was not designed to provide the level of consistency and security we require. The internet is not deterministic: we need 50 new pictures every second. Oh, and we want to achieve this high performance, deterministic connectivity with the absolute minimum of latency.

This is where you need specialist video services, to guarantee the high quality and low latency we expect. It calls for a transport layer to provide the determinism and stability, which must also be capable of working with any of the standards currently in use.

This transport layer needs special facilities to ensure that the deterministic video signal gets through unscathed. That means bespoke algorithms, backed by machine learning to get the best out of each individual circuit. Those algorithms, in turn, will support at least the most common of the video streaming formats in current use, including NDI and SRT as well as SMPTE. Native support eliminates the need for additional transcoding stages which introduce latency and add points of risk.

A good transport layer will also use sophisticated dynamic forward error correction (FEC), to minimise disturbances. As the name implies, forward error correction sends certain signals in advance of the main stream to assist recovery should there be a glitch, which means FEC inevitably adds latency. A well-designed system will allow users to fine-tune the balance between signal resilience and latency.

To protect the intellectual property in the video, the stream must be secured in transit. The most widely respected scheme is the Advanced Encryption Standard, generally shortened to AES (but not to be confused with the Audio Engineering Society and its digital standards).

Finally, all this must be implemented as a plug-and-play option, so it can be set up quickly and with the minimum of specialist knowledge, and a Service Level Agreement (SLA) with 99.999% availability for full assurance.

We have created a uniquely powerful solution which meets these requirements, the Caton Transport Protocols (CTP), now comprehensively proven and in regular use by major productions and broadcasters. It points the way to a future where contribution circuits routinely use the IP connectivity that is available, layering on it the security, predictability and reliability the broadcast and media industry demands.

Etere Ecosystem redefines a new generation of content publishing with a strategic software-driven workflow that streamlines the content supply chain, including playout of both linear and non-linear content. With one system, you can manage the end-to-end workflow effectively.

Etere Ecosystem is a fully customizable software solution that can manage your end-to-end media workflow with integrated and automated workflows to manage business processes, leading to better cost-efficiency and productivity. It features a sophisticated architecture with direct archive and database communication.

Simplify with Workflow Orchestration

Etere Ecosystem orchestrates the processes and resources required, from management and preparation to content publication. With automated and customizable workflows, Etere brings you a breakthrough in efficiency and flexibility. Furthermore, it provides perfect synchronization between workflow actions. Etere T-workflow features a workflow designer for a fully personalized and reliable way to create or modify distinct broadcasting procedures. It allows the simultaneous execution of multiple independent actions automatically, based on pre-configured criteria. Monitoring and managing your media assets have never been easier.

Dynamic Ad Insertion with SCTE Triggers

Etere Ecosystem manages Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI) and Digital Program Insertion (DPI) to deliver targeted commercials to reach consumers across different markets and to increase its content monetization revenue. With SCTE triggers for dynamic advertising, content producers can broadcast customized commercials driven by data analytics and advanced metadata. In addition, with the insertion of Flexi-metadata, commercial delivery can be targeted on multiple levels, including geo-localization, demographics, device type, and media consumption preferences. With the same program, broadcasters can insert different advertisements to targeted markets. These capabilities enhance the viewer experience for OTT content delivery as it allows service providers to deliver advertisements that are more relevant and in tune with the viewer's profile. Etere Ecosystem opens new media monetization opportunities to drive remote ad insertions and tap on advertising opportunities in different markets for an enhanced return on investment in content and advertising revenue.

Actionable Business Analytics

With real-time data driving actionable business intelligence, users can strategically plan and make informed decisions about viewer engagement and content optimization, including targeted advertisements. Etere Ecosystem analytics dashboard empowers content distributors with viewability, interactivity, and viewership data. The accessibility of Etere Web makes it easy for distributed teams to collaborate and access data in real-time on a centralized database, even while on the move.

Flexible and Multi-Bitrate Encoder

Etere Multi-Bitrate Encoder offers integrated advertising management with SCTE and Google Dynamic Ad Insertion markers for OTT advertising. As content delivery requirements evolve, Etere consistently enhances its technology to empower broadcasters with the leading-edge technology to leverage content monetization opportunities in the market. Etere Multi-Bitrate Encoder is released as a simplified platform to efficiently manage OTT workflows and ad insertions through a streamlined workflow. Powered by GPU, Etere has a very low CPU impact to deliver multiple streams of multiple resolutions and bitrate to match the receiver capabilities. It integrates the recording of video signals (SDI/IP/NDI) and encodes the recordings into HLS-compatible files in multiple resolutions.

Professional Quality Playout with a Smaller Footprint

Etere ETX is a complete software-defined Channel-in-a-Box featuring all the capabilities needed to bring a channel live, including full IP/NDI/SDI (in and out) for multiple frame rates. As a software instance on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware, Etere ETX delivers an integrated playout, master control, closed captions, and graphics on a single interface. ETX has playout features needed to bring a channel on-air, including cloud playout, ingest, automation, master control, and interactive graphics.

Virtualization and Cloud

Etere streamlines your workflow with integrated support for virtualization and the cloud. Etere provides a virtual environment for unlimited streams without the associated hardware costs.

Streamlined Insertion and Management of Secondary Events

Etere STMAN supports even the most complex event structures involving multiple layers of graphical elements such as logos, crawls, subtitles, and channel branding, as well as device commands such as script, hex pass-through, and channel switch. As OTT advertising workflows are more efficient, they are no longer disconnected or separated from the broadcast streams.

Etere OTT Delivery

TV viewing habits have changed considerably, and increasingly, audiences want the option to watch their favourite programs on their preferred devices and at the time they choose. This shift poses a new set of challenges for broadcasters. In addition, media convergence brings with it a new way of monetizing content. To optimize delivery efficiency, Etere Over-the-Top Delivery provides the most efficient software tools to manage the distribution of OTT content to all popular media platforms.

A user-friendly interface enables users to create delivery orders where all conditions can be specified from the distributor, platform, metadata, and materials to the workflow to automatically adjust content to the technical requirements of a specific platform and transfer packaged files where needed. The integrated system is managed with a single Media Asset Management and can quickly produce multiple streams of customized content. Each stream can have ad insertions in the form of secondary objects, including squeezes, overlays, and animated logos. Etere Ecosystem opens up a world of opportunities for advertisement placements, allowing you to have a higher return on your assets for both linear and OTT delivery.

With Etere, you can distribute content over various media platforms, including Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime, Redbox Instant, Vudu, Vodafone TV, CanalSat, Orange Nouvelle TV, and more. The integrated platform includes the management of licensing rights and defines the contractual agreement for each media file, even for databases numbering in thousands. Etere T-workflow automatically triggers the delivery workflow appropriated to automatically adjust content to the technical specifications of a particular platform. Etere ensures complete compliance of all delivered materials according to the technical specifications required by each specific OTT platform.

It also integrates real-time payment tracking of content produced, enhancing flexibility through automation. Etere Ecosystem has helped broadcasters worldwide improve the distribution and monetization of their OTT content by significantly automating material packaging and cutting delivery times.

Stay Ahead of the Game with Etere Ecosystem

While content monetization technologies are changing with viewers' increasingly fragmented content consumption habits, you can stay ahead of the game with Etere. Etere Ecosystem's integrated, customizable and cost-effective solutions allow you to drive higher revenue and deliver an enhanced viewer experience. With Etere Ecosystem, content owners can drastically reduce the complexity of creating and delivering linear and non-linear channels.

About Etere

Since its beginnings in 1987, Etere has been preparing users for the future. Etere is a worldwide provider of broadcast and media software solutions backed by its mark of excellence in system design, flexibility, and reliability. The revolutionary concept of the Etere Ecosystem promotes real-time collaborations and enhances operational efficiency across the entire enterprise. Etere Ecosystem software solutions manage the end-to-end media workflow and feature an integrative Web and Windows architecture that is customizable to fit perfectly in any system.

Etere delivers on its service excellence commitment with 24/7 worldwide support and inclusive software updates. Its portfolio of digital technologies and market-proven remote/on-site services such as consultancy, training, installation, and demonstrations are ready to run with your business no matter where you are. Etere enhances your adaptability for the future and empowers you with the most innovative software tools to drive your business to greater heights.

To find a media management strategy that works for your business, visit www.etere.com.