Author: Lauren Aversa

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Kurt Clawson Retires as Senior VP of Solutions at CHESA – A Decade of Pioneering and Excellence

Kurt Clawson Retires as Senior VP of Solutions at CHESA – A Decade of Pioneering and Excellence 

CHESA announces the retirement of Kurt Clawson, our esteemed Senior Vice President of Solutions, effective January 1, 2024. Kurt’s retirement marks the end of an extraordinary career of innovation, leadership, and exemplary service in the field of media technology and solutions. 

Kurt Clawson, a titan in the field of media technology, joined CHESA a decade ago, bringing with him a wealth of experience and an enviable track record of achievements. He is widely recognized for his visionary approach and ethical leadership, having received multiple accolades, including two Technical Emmy Awards for Outstanding Engineering Achievement in 2001 and 2003. These awards, bestowed by The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, honored his pioneering work in shared video-data storage systems and multi-quality video encoding solutions. 

As a Technology Fellow awarded by Technicolor in 2009, Kurt’s reputation as a global industry leader and innovator was firmly established. His contributions to CHESA have been invaluable, particularly in areas such as technology management, new technology invention, and process re-engineering. He has been instrumental in designing and implementing innovative solutions for large-scale media asset management, production workflow management, and electronic content distribution. 

Kurt’s leadership style is one that inspires. He has been a mentor to many and is known for his team-building skills and a results-oriented focus that has significantly contributed to the growth and success of CHESA. His legacy includes a profound impact on the media and entertainment technology landscape, marked by groundbreaking solutions in solutions architecture, distributed systems design, metadata utilization, workflow analysis, and automation. 

As he steps into retirement, Kurt leaves behind a legacy of excellence, innovation, and dedicated service. His departure is not just the closing of a remarkable career chapter but also a celebration of the lasting impact he has made on CHESA and the industry at large. 

CHESA extends its deepest gratitude to Kurt for his ten years of dedicated service, leadership, and innovation. We wish him all the best in his well-deserved retirement and his future endeavors. Kurt’s presence will be greatly missed, but his contributions will continue to inspire and guide us in the years to come. 

About CHESA: 

CHESA offers an engaged and embedded approach to analyzing, engineering, implementing, and maintaining highly advanced media technology systems, specializing in M&E workflow solutions. CHESA also offers industry education on The Workflow Show podcast. From production and creation, storage, management, distribution, and preservation. CHESA’s superior skill set, and knowledge base are built on decades of collaboration with leading organizations, creatives, and IT teams. Learn more at www.chesa.com. 

Categories
Digital Asset Management Digital Media Video

What Should I Look for in a Video Archive Storage Solution?

In today’s digitally driven landscape, video content reigns supreme. Whether it’s a corporation’s promotional videos, a filmmaker’s raw footage, or a broadcaster’s extensive library, the secure and efficient storage of digital assets has never been more critical. Choosing the right video archive storage solution becomes crucial.

With many options available, what should you prioritize when seeking an archive system for your video content? Let’s explore.

 

Understanding the Core of Video Archive Storage

Video archive storage is not just about keeping your media files safe; it’s about ensuring they’re accessible, manageable, and preserved for the long haul. Beyond just storage solutions, the comprehensive ecosystem supports collaboration, facilitates quick retrieval when needed, and archives and preserves media assets. Essential capabilities and functions include:

 

Compatibility with Multiple File Formats

Given the diverse range of video and media files today, your chosen solution should seamlessly support many formats, including still images, video files, audio files, and editorial in-process project files. Your team will also need access to other branding and project management files, including decision lists, text files, and style guides. The archive system should handle them without hitches, whether it’s 4K footage, vintage film scans, or the latest virtual reality (VR) experiences.

Your Solution Must Be Compatible with Hardware and Software from Multiple Vendors

Modern video production can include footage from multiple cameras, drones, and even content from viewers and fans. Raw files come in from many different sources and are edited with a wide range of apps. Interoperability is essential to integrate your video archive solution effectively. Your new video archive solution must match existing media systems and workflows well. Many media asset management systems are accessible through panels in popular editing software applications like Adobe Premiere Pro. Whether it’s editing software, media management tools, or content distribution networks, seamless integration ensures a smooth and efficient workflow.

Powerful Search and Retrieval Capabilities

A video archive is as effective as its asset management capabilities. Beyond just storing, the system should provide tools to categorize, tag, and annotate your media assets. These features ensure that searching and accessing specific video content is swift and hassle-free, saving you time in the long run.

Automation

Intelligent systems that automate repetitive, labor-intensive tasks like ingesting, enriching metadata, and transcoding ensure consistency and save valuable time. Many solutions include AI and machine learning to automate metadata enrichment. By eliminating redundant tasks and ensuring that editors can quickly find and access the assets they need, creatives can do what they do best – produce compelling videos.

Scalability for Future Needs

The number of digital video viewers worldwide is expected to increase to 3.5 Billion this year. More and more videos are being produced to meet the growing demand, and viewers expect quality production. If you are creating videos, you can expect growing demand. Your archive storage should be scalable to accommodate future growth in video files and other media. Whether adding more videos monthly or experiencing seasonal spikes, the storage solution must grow with your needs.

Integration with Cloud Storage

While traditional on-prem file video archival systems played a pivotal role, cloud storage has revolutionized media asset storage. Cloud-based solutions ensure that remote and hybrid workers can access everything they need from wherever they are working. But not all studios can move to 100% cloud-based. For some studios, a comprehensive video archive solution should seamlessly integrate with cloud platforms and on-premises storage solutions, allowing for easy backups, greater accessibility, and flexibility in managing digital assets.

Robust Data Protection

The safety of your video content is paramount. From accidental deletions to unforeseen disasters, the storage solution should provide multiple layers of protection. This protection includes encryption for security, redundancy to prevent data loss, and disaster recovery protocols.

Long-Term Preservation

Media archives are not just for the short term. You’re preserving valuable content, historical records, and memories that might be needed years, if not decades, down the line. Ensuring that the video archive storage system is built for longevity is vital, with provisions to migrate data when technology evolves.

Accessibility and User-Friendliness

While the backend of an archive system might be complex, accessing and managing your media files should be intuitive. A user-friendly interface, coupled with powerful search tools, ensures that even non-technical users can easily retrieve and manage video content.

Cost-Effectiveness

While going for the most robust and advanced storage solutions is tempting, overbuying is not recommended. First, identify your team’s needs. Then, evaluate the total cost of ownership, which includes not just the initial setup but maintenance, scaling, and potential upgrades in the future.

Support and Upgrades

Lastly, consider the level of support provided by the solution provider. Are they staffed with experts in media workflow integration? Do they understand the needs of creative teams and the industry-leading technologies that are used in video production and postproduction? Do they have a commitment to the industry, and will they be available to continue to support the solution after implementation? As technology evolves, your system should receive regular updates to stay current. A reliable support system ensures that any hitches are addressed promptly, minimizing potential downtime.

Video archive storage is more than just a digital cupboard for your media assets; it’s the foundation upon which your video content’s longevity and accessibility rest. As you venture into choosing a video archive solution, prioritize flexibility, security, scalability, and efficiency. In this digital age, where content is invaluable, a robust video archival system isn’t just a good-to-have—it’s a necessity.

Contact Us Today

CHESA has a passion for the nuances of media workflow integration. We have strong partnerships with the best-of-breed technology providers in the creative IT industry. We take a holistic approach in recommending solutions that bring real value and benefits to your organization, rather than selling technology for technology’s sake. Our team comes to the table with deep knowledge of the tools and vendors and is ready to address the demands and requirements of your environment and advance your business goals. Contact us today to find out more about how automating workflows in the Adobe ecosystem can bring greater efficiency and free up your creatives for their very best work.

Categories
Digital Asset Management Digital Media MAM Technology

Media Workflow Management in a Remote Editing Era

The digital landscape is continuously evolving. With recent shifts towards remote work, the industry has entered the remote editing era in which short turnaround times and access to a global talent pool are the norm. The traditional studio environment has been reimagined. But this transformation is not without its challenges. Managing media assets and orchestrating efficient workflows is essential, or productions can get bogged down with inefficiencies and reworks. Effective media workflow management is critical in the remote editing era to compete in an industry expecting quick turnaround and high-quality content.

At its core, media workflow management involves overseeing the entire lifecycle of a media asset from ingest to final distribution. Effective media workflow management requires that each step be meticulously mapped. The objective? To streamline processes, ensure consistent quality, and deliver media content efficiently, regardless of where editing team members are located.

 

The Role of Media Assets in Workflow Management

The building blocks of any finished video are comprised of the many assets that go into creating the content. These blocks include raw footage, audio, in-process editing files, special effects files, graphic and branding elements, and polished videos ready for distribution on a wide range of platforms and formats. These files are precious, yet too often, they are underutilized. Effective asset management ensures that these media files are cataloged, retrievable, and ready for processing.

In a remote editing setting, this becomes even more critical. When creative teams work in an inefficient and fragmented asset management and storage system, efficiency and quality take a hit. Teams need real-time access to assets without the latency or bottlenecks that can hamper creativity.

 

Dissecting the Media Workflow Process

Your media assets have a project lifecycle from pre- and post-production to transcode, QC, distribution, and beyond. A comprehensive media workflow process is a roadmap that guides a media asset through its lifecycle. Critical points in the workflow include:

 

Acquisition and Ingest

Every project begins with acquisition and media ingest, where raw content is imported into the system. This phase requires tools that can handle vast amounts of data swiftly and seamlessly, especially when dealing with high-definition or even 8K content. The best systems will enhance metadata at ingest, adding information about location, format, film dates, and even looking inside for faces, objects, speech-to-text, and other attributes.

 

Editorial

Once ingested, the editorial phase kicks in. This phase is a dynamic and creative workflow stage from video editing, visual effects, animation, and motion graphics to photography, audio editing, color-grading, and finishing. Different creatives may be working with different apps. They need to be able to collaborate effectively and share files seamlessly. In today’s remote era, cloud-based tools and platforms allow editors to collaborate in real-time, annotate, and share feedback without being in the same physical space. Bottlenecks in this phase result in lost time and expensive reworks and can pull creators out of the flow.

Media management steps into the limelight at this critical content creation stage, ensuring that the processed assets are organized, backed up, and stored with metadata tagging. This optimization is crucial for easy retrieval, version control, and updates. In remote editing, it’s not just about storage but accessibility. Cloud-based asset management solutions allow teams to pull or push content irrespective of their geographical location.

 

Transcoding and Distribution

Finally, the media distribution phase takes center stage. Once content is polished and ready, it’s dispatched to various platforms – be it streaming services, broadcast channels, or digital platforms. Ensuring content reaches the right platform in the correct format in a fragmented media consumption world is paramount. The sheer number of broadcast outlets, OTT, and social media platforms are as numerous as they are diverse. Viewers are accessing content on every conceivable device. Gone are the days when media distribution was linear. Today, it’s multi-directional and multi-platform. As media is edited and refined remotely, it must also be distributed to a global audience. Media workflow management ensures that distribution is timely, format-compliant, and aligned with the target audience’s consumption habits.

 

Archiving and Repurposing

The value of your assets shouldn’t disappear after distribution. An effective media management system will support extending the life of your media files and allow you to repurpose valuable content.

 

Integrating Workflow Management in the Remote Era

With teams now dispersed, robust workflow management is the glue that holds the process together. It’s not just about individual tasks but orchestrating them to work harmoniously. Whether it’s ensuring that media assets are easily accessible to editors across the globe or streamlining feedback loops, workflow management tools must be agile, cloud-native, and intuitive.

The remote editing era has redefined the boundaries of media creation and distribution. It’s dismantled geographical barriers but introduced new challenges in collaboration and accessibility. Amidst these shifts, media workflow management stands as the backbone, ensuring that from media ingest to distribution, every step is executed flawlessly.

Organizations can thrive in this new landscape by integrating tools and solutions that cater to media asset management, processing, and distribution. As the adage goes, ‘change is the only constant.’ The key to navigating this change in the media world is a robust, flexible, and efficient media workflow management system.

 

Contact Us Today

CHESA has a passion for the nuances of media workflow integration. We have strong partnerships with the best-of-breed technology providers in the creative IT industry. We take a holistic approach in recommending solutions that bring real value and benefits to your organization rather than selling technology for technology’s sake. Our team comes to the table with deep knowledge of the tools and vendors. It is ready to address the demands and requirements of your environment and advance your business goals. Contact us today to find out more about how automating workflows in the Adobe ecosystem can bring greater efficiency and free up your creatives for their very best work.

Categories
Digital Asset Management Digital Media MAM Technology

Multi-Faceted Media Systems Integration

On the journey from inspiration to a finished video, your creative team will have their hands on quite a bit of technology. There are many specialized, robust software solutions for every step, from production to postproduction to transcoding and distribution. You may have several capture devices and may have unique ingest needs. Everyone on your team works with media files, so a good Media Asset Management (MAM) solution is essential. Team members may be spread all over the globe. Some are on location, others in on-prem studios, and others work from home.

Many small and medium-sized video production teams find that they have loosely connected a hodgepodge of software, hardware, and media storage solutions into a fragile and overly complex system. A system that has evolved may be inefficient and easily broken.

The organic and haphazard adoption of tools may have left your team with ineffective, poorly documented workflows. These workflows may have evolved without ever being designed for efficiency, creativity, or high performance. With so many innovations on the market promising to transform your editing process, you may wonder how to get the greatest efficiency and quality. It may be time to take a good look at multifaceted systems integration.

When properly engineered, these disparate solutions can work seamlessly as one. Multifaceted media system integration is the process of combining all these tools into one system. The result is a powerful single-source content supply chain.

When you commit to multifaceted media systems integration, the first step will be to get a picture of the current hardware and software, all the locations where files are needed, what team members require access, what software applications are used in their work, and the related hardware at each step of preproduction, production, postproduction, and file distribution.

A system integrator will partner with you to dig deep into an analysis of the system architecture and assess how the components work together. While many new innovations are available, there is often the need to continue preserving and using valuable legacy systems. A customized and personalized system integration strategy will allow you to implement new technologies while benefiting from legacy systems.

Workflow analysis is also essential. Once workflow issues have been identified, the workflow engineer can design fresh solutions that will bring your team the greatest efficiencies and free up time and energy for creative work. Once the needs have been assessed, the next step is architecting and deploying systems that incorporate all essential aspects. The result is a reliable, properly integrated system.

Investing in a media system and single-source content supply chain integration brings operational efficiencies to your team, including automation, streamlined workflows, improved access to assets, powerful search capabilities, and better collaboration and sharing.

 

Advantages of Single Source Content Supply Chain Integration

A content supply chain is the system to plan, produce, and deliver content. Integration into a single source brings tangible value and benefits to any organization. When your infrastructure aligns with the content your customers want, your team will create high-quality videos efficiently.

  • Single-source content supply chain integration improves efficiency by reducing the time it takes to produce and distribute content.
  • Your creative team will spend less time searching for assets and are freed up to create content.
  • Having a single source of content makes it easier to manage workflows.
  • Versioning control ensures that everyone is working on the same version of the media files, reducing delays and improving content production speed.
  • Single-source content supply chains can reduce storage needs by eliminating the need for multiple copies of the same content.

Effective multifaceted media systems link the tools so that these many different components function and act as a single coordinated solution. Creative applications can be set up to interact with other software, hardware, network, storage, and media asset management systems to facilitate and streamline workflows.

 

Contact Us Today

CHESA can evaluate your current setup and ensure the proper infrastructure is in place to meet your needs and deliver your product with quality, speed, and efficiency.

CHESA has a passion for the nuances of media workflow integration. We have strong partnerships with the best-of-breed technology providers in the creative IT industry. We take a holistic approach in recommending solutions that bring real value and benefits to your organization rather than selling technology for technology’s sake. Our team comes to the table with deep knowledge of the tools and vendors. It is ready to address the demands and requirements of your environment and advance your business goals. Contact us today to learn more about how a multifaceted media systems integration can enable your creative team to create high-quality videos efficiently.

Categories
Digital Asset Management Digital Media

Media Workflow Automation in Adobe

A workflow is a sequence of tasks or steps that take a video project from inception to completion. There are workflows for every stage of the project, from ingest to distribution, and for every type of activity, including editorial work and review and approvals. Every project has workflows, whether they are documented or not. Media workflow automation is an effective strategy to enhance productivity, improve quality, and ensure consistency.

Adobe’s video applications are designed for workflow automation. Adobe Premier Pro has built-in workflow orchestration, but it is also designed to integrate with other apps and workflow orchestration tools. Helmut by MoovIt Software Products (MSP is an incredibly powerful orchestration tool). MSP is a German-based product developer and an Adobe Video Solution Partner.

We’ve been impressed with the power of Helmut right from the beginning. Helmut’s Streamdesigner is a powerful and flexible low-code workflow builder that allows creatives to design workflows that are tailored to their exact needs. In October 2021, we invited David Merzenich of MSP, one of the creators of Helmut, to CHESA’s workflow show. Our conversation with David is worth checking out if you would like to explore more about the power of Helmut.

 

Striving for Consistency and Flexibility in Post-Production

Sometimes, editorial teams are racing towards completion without stepping back first and taking a hard look at workflows. Ensuring consistency can be challenging, with so many players having a role in video production and post-production. Well-defined workflows provide a framework for editorial work that ensures consistency.

When automating workflows, you should explore automating repeatable tasks, especially if they are labor-intensive. This automation will have a measurable impact on streamlining your project. For example, ingest and tagging are labor-intensive processes that lend well to automation.

Another area to look at is multistep processes with significant variability. By streamlining and standardizing multistep processes, you can ensure that all team members use the most efficient approach. When the whole team uses the same process, coordination and collaboration can be enhanced, and handoffs are more predictable and easy to schedule.

Automated workflows can expedite the review and approval process, ensuring that feedback and approvals are provided promptly at each critical point and that work does not proceed until review and approval have been completed. This optimization can prevent costly reworks when unapproved assets are used in a project.

Sometimes, there’s a worry that consistency will be adverse to creativity. The opposite can be true. When workflows tackle the pieces that need to be consistent in an efficient manner, they carve out time for the creative aspects of the project.

There are many places where consistency is essential in a video project. Brand consistency is one example. Workflows, branding, and templates can ensure that all branding guidelines are in place.

When designing workflows, the importance of flexibility should not be overlooked. When workflows are too rigid, you force creators into a one-size-fits-all approach, which can backfire. Systems Integrators and workflow engineers should consider the creatives’ needs, skills, styles, expertise, and preferred ways of working. When editors are empowered to adjust workflows to match their creative style and needs, they can gain the efficiency and consistency they seek while still having workflow solutions that enhance creativity.

Consistency and automation are keys to production efficiency, yet flexibility is often essential for creativity. Striking a balance requires a deep understanding of the creative process, the tools, and the systems. Integration and workflow development within Adobe Premiere Pro keeps editors focused on editing. Helmut by MSP further enhances the ability to create powerful, automated workflows that balance consistency and flexibility within the Adobe ecosystem.

 

Contact Us Today

CHESA has a passion for the nuances of media workflow automation and integration. We have strong partnerships with the best-of-breed technology providers in the creative IT industry. We take a holistic approach in recommending solutions that bring real value and benefits to your organization rather than selling technology for technology’s sake. Our team comes to the table with deep knowledge of the tools and vendors. It is ready to address the demands and requirements of your environment and advance your business goals. Contact us today to learn more about how automating workflows in the Adobe ecosystem can bring greater efficiency and free up your creatives for their best work.

Categories
Digital Asset Management

The Media Supply Chain: A Content Supply Chain Evaluation Guide

Just like a manufacturing supply chain has all the resources needed for production, your media supply chain includes all the raw materials necessary to complete a finished video for distribution. At one time, the supply chain for film included physical media like film and tape, but today it is far more common to have digital content. Digital files are well suited for cloud-based systems, and an effective cloud-based media supply chain solution will enhance operations across the project. Use our content supply chain evaluation guide to optimize your chain.

Media supply chain components will include:

  • Powerful Media Asset Management.
  • Cloud-based Acquire and Ingest workflows.
  • Full support of the most popular editing and postproduction tools, including Adobe Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut Pro X, Avid Media Composer, Avid Pro Tools, and more.
  • Automated transcode capabilities for distribution.
  • Cloud-based archiving and storage to secure valuable content and allow repurposing to keep assets working for you.

A well-managed media supply chain ensures that everyone has access to the content they need when needed. Effective media supply chain management is more than managing the raw files; it is about orchestrating workflows, people, and processes. When there are issues in your media supply chain, your production may experience delays in distribution, or you may have a mismatch between the team members and the required work.

How do you know if an ineffective media supply chain is bogging down your production?

  1. Does your media supply chain ensure all team members have access to the files and raw materials needed to work efficiently? If you find team members waiting for the assets they need for their job, you may have a media supply chain issue.
  2. Does the software you use to manage your media supply chain manage assets from raw files at ingest, through finished videos, and finally archive and repurpose?
  3. Do your software tools provide metrics that allow you to evaluate your media supply chain (e.g., digital rights, media usage across projects, etc.)?
  4. Are workflow processes built into your media asset management system to help with automation?
  5. Is your media supply chain managed in the Cloud so team members can quickly access the resources they need from any location? More and more editors are working remotely. If your media supply chain is managed on-prem, you may miss out on the benefits of remote and hybrid teams.
  6. Can you identify your production bottlenecks? Every production has them. Consider how you could optimize and streamline processes and evaluate the impact of resources, time, and productivity.
  7. Can your media supply chain adapt to emerging needs, new clients, and changes in volume? A good media supply chain system should increase your organization’s agility.

Once you have completed your content supply chain evaluation, you may find it is the right time to modernize and move operations to the Cloud.

Building and Managing Operations in the Cloud

There is an abundance of options in the market to manage your media supply chain. The right partner can help make your move to the Cloud a success. Some studios are best served with a turn-key Software as a Service (SaaS) system, while others have legacy systems, special hardware and equipment, or specialized production requirements that benefit from the expertise of a systems integrator who truly understands the needs of the video industry.

CHESA recognizes the wealth of options available to you. We aim to advise you on the most efficient way to move forward. We get to the root of your specific needs through a Discovery Engagement that includes the following:

  • Getting to know your organization.
  • Listening to your unique challenges.
  • Spending time with users and observing them at work.
  • Working to understand your future-minded wishes.
  • Developing a document detailing your current system, including technical requirements and identified bottlenecks.
  • Sharing our recommendations for moving forward.

There is no one size fits all solution. The best solution for your company will be the one that matches your workflows and tools, leverages your strengths, and introduces new efficiencies. Perhaps you already have your own cloud provider, but you need support. At CHESA, we call that “Bring Your Own Cloud” or BYOC. When you already have a cloud provider, CHESA can manage and maintain your computer, storage, and MAM so your team can focus on the creative aspects of their job, knowing that their media supply pipeline won’t let them down. We also offer hybrid managed solutions where customers leverage their own infrastructure but also want to take advantage of the security of having computers, storage, and MAM at a CHESA co-location facility. And last but not least, we offer Acorn Cloud, a turn-key CHESA-managed and hosted solution that has been designed from the ground up for small and medium-sized teams.

There are so many options. The wrong fit will waste time and money. We can help you navigate through the options and avoid implementing an ill-suited media supply chain solution. By tailoring your cloud-based media workflow operations to your needs, your company will gain efficiency and have a great return on investment.

Contact Us Today

CHESA has helped many organizations complete their content supply chain evaluation and move their media operations to the Cloud. Our approach is to listen to our customers’ needs, learn about them, and then present them with solutions that will meet their needs.

We have strong partnerships with the best-of-breed technology providers in the creative IT industry. We take a holistic approach in recommending solutions that bring real value and benefits to your organization rather than selling technology for technology’s sake. Our team comes to the table with deep knowledge of the tools and vendors and is ready to address the demands and requirements of your environment and advance your business goals. Contact us today to find out more about how taking your media supply chain to the Cloud can make your organization more agile and efficient.

Categories
Technology

Understanding the Epic: A Closer Look at Agile Software Development

user with digital overlay

In the world of agile software development, there’s a term we use a lot – “Epic.” An Epic for agile software development is much like a novel, a substantive body of work, but in our world, it’s made up of smaller, easier-to-digest pieces known as ‘user stories.’ Picture it like chapters in a book, all contributing to the whole story. Some of the key characteristics of epics are:

  • They stretch over numerous iterations and sprints, just like a novel stretches over many chapters.
  • Epics serve as a roadmap, helping to organize and prioritize the product backlog.

The Spotlight on Our Epic: Building an End-to-End Interoperable Master Format (IMF) Workflow

Now, the epic we’re focusing on here is all about building a fully functional platform to oversee an end-to-end Interoperable Master Format (IMF) workflow. To those outside the industry, the IMF is a universal standard in the production and distribution of digital motion pictures and television programs. By bringing an end-to-end IMF workflow to life, we can deliver some incredible benefits:

  • Smoothing out the production processes, much like a well-oiled machine.
  • Boosting efficiency so that everyone can do more with less.
  • Cutting down costs, who doesn’t love that?

Adding the Air Traffic Control (ATC) Layer: Taking Command of Production

We know how important it is to have control over all production-related work. That’s why we suggest including an Air Traffic Control (ATC) layer – think of it as the command center for your production process.

Our epic story centers around an IMF work process, where we’ve identified three main characters, or as we say in the business, ‘user personas.’ With this incredible system in place, our users can:

  • Set off automated events, giving them a complete Interoperable Master Package (IMP) for the next steps of validation and processing.
  • Utilize an alternate workflow where individual deliverables required for a full IMP are treated as ingredients in a “recipe.”
  • Trust in the system to assemble a standard IMP from these ingredients once all are received.

Boosting User Interactivity and Improving Communication with Notification Mechanisms

Now, our epic for agile software development wouldn’t be complete without keeping our users in the loop. That’s why we’ve included notification mechanisms for every event, keeping both users and the system workflow orchestration layer in sync.

Our users will have the power to interact with the ATC layer in a number of ways:

  • They can create, manage, and keep an eye on activities happening in the workflow process.
  • They have the power to inform a go/no-go decision at any stage in the process.
  • The automated process can help by integrating fully qualified IMP-S files into the original IMP.

End-Point Deliverables: The Balance of Automation and Manual Requests

Just like how every book has an ending, our process too has end-point deliverables. They can be manually requested for predefined, one-off deliveries or produced as part of an automated process once we have achieved certain upstream success factors.

We do require a strict adherence to a predefined Studios delivery package standard, influenced by the likes of Netflix and Amazon, but don’t worry – we’ve made sure it’s easy to follow.

Transparent Troubleshooting: Addressing Failures through ATC

We’ve all experienced hiccups in a process, and our system ensures that if any issues occur, they’re visible through the ATC user interface. Users can easily initiate resubmission or cancellation of a given work process directly from the ATC. Picture it as a “command-Z” option; something went wrong? No problem, let’s take a step back and try again.

Bringing it All Together

In this epic journey, we’ve brought together a wide array of processes, tools, and user interactions. We’ve built a platform that is designed to streamline and simplify the complexities of digital motion picture and television program production.

Just like the chapters of a book, every element in this epic has its unique role, contributing to the grand narrative of increasing efficiency and reducing costs. The ATC layer, the automation, and the user interface all coalesce to deliver a seamless experience, keeping users in control and informed every step of the way.

This story isn’t just about the nuts and bolts of Agile Software Development or about the technicalities of an IMF workflow. At its core, this epic is a story about people – the users who interact with the system, the teams who manage the workflow, and the audience who will ultimately enjoy the results of a smoother, more efficient production process. And that’s the beauty of it: our work may be technical, but it’s all about creating a more engaging, personable, and effective experience for everyone involved.

Categories
Digital Media Technology

Improving Creative Workflows through Broadcast Systems Integration

Live shows. On-location news crews covering a big story. Live broadcasts of sporting events with millions of viewers globally. Large creative teams on location and in studios. Video coming in from multiple cameras at every angle. Impactful graphics and special effects. This is the world of broadcast media production, where viewers and advertisers demand the highest quality. Broadcast systems integration is essential in this environment to ensure your production team operates efficiently.

Modern consumer demand stretches broadcast production teams to the limits, and efficiency and seamless collaboration are necessary for producing high-quality video content rapidly and getting it out to viewers. In broadcast media production, agile workflows are not a luxury; they are crucial to getting the job done well.

Streamlined Asset Management for Broadcasting Teams

Streamlined asset management is the key to bringing it all together for broadcast teams. It is not uncommon for live productions to have production crews on location. At the same time, postproduction team members are offsite in the studios and at home, poised and ready to take uploaded content and quickly create videos prepared for immediate distribution. While a huge volume of assets is being assembled and ingested, the teams must also get their hands on the rich archive of assets. All MAMs will have basic features like metadata management, search and retrieve, and version control.

The broadcast team relies on the media asset management (MAM) system. Media Asset Management systems ensure that assets are easy to find and retrieve but do more than manage content. The right media asset management system will streamline workflows and allow broadcast teams to break through the challenges of this sector to create impactful content on short timelines. Broadcast teams need an asset management system that is agile and includes workflow orchestration tools as well. Optimized workflows that provide immediate access to assets enable faster sharing of media files with all creative team members. These efficiencies impact the finished video and expedite related content creation like highlight reels, interviews, and news clips. A MAM that can handle the demand of broadcast media will include:

  • Powerful metadata enrichment features to allow easy search and retrieval automated by AI and machine learning.
  • Robust security to manage user access to the media files and to protect against cyberattacks as well as unauthorized access and use.
  • Broadcast systems integration is essential. Your production team will be most efficient and creative when your MAM seamlessly integrates with their video editing software and other tools.
  • Built-in review, approval, and collaboration tools.
  • Hybrid system capabilities. Because broadcast studios often have significant on-premises investments, a hybrid solution that brings cloud-based media asset management while leveraging on-prem assets, equipment, and team members can be an effective solution. This capability gives broadcast production companies the power to harness the power of their on-prem investments while ensuring access for remote creatives, a growing segment of the production industry’s talent pool.
  • Automation is a game-changer, allowing creatives to do more in less time while ensuring consistency through many time-consuming and repetitive processes, including ingesting, metadata enrichment, validation of files, to the final distribution of finished video content.
  • Because many broadcasters distribute through multiple channels at the same time, broadcasters need to have a MAM that will support distribution to various devices and platforms and work with the most prominent players in social media like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter, and the nonlinear platforms like video on demand and OTT.

With so many MAMs on the market, it’s challenging for companies to match the solution with their unique needs. One struggle that established broadcast media companies face when upgrading their MAM is how to bring it all together. When Kroenke Sports and Entertainment needed to modernize their MAM, they required a partner to understand the value of their legacy content and on-prem investments. Kroenke Sports owns several sports franchises and broadcasts collegiate and high school sports in their markets. CHESA worked with Kroenke to implement the IPV Curator MAM system. This system ensures consistency in content management and increased the efficiency of post-production. CHESA workflow engineers worked with the team to design effective proxy-based workflows and integrate them with other software and systems. Their media management system is robust to meet their current needs while also being designed to adapt to their future needs.

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CHESA has supported broadcasters in identifying and deploying the solutions they need to produce and distribute high-quality content efficiently. CHESA has a passion for the nuances of media workflow integration. We take a holistic approach in recommending solutions that bring real value and benefits to your organization rather than selling technology for technology’s sake. Our team comes to the table with deep knowledge of the tools and vendors and is ready to address the demands and requirements of your environment and advance your business goals. Contact us today to find out more about how a Media Asset Management Platform can foster collaboration at your organization.

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Digital Media

Broadcast Automation for Broadcasting and Production Teams

Broadcast media is content that is distributed to large audiences. Traditionally, “broadcast” was used to describe television and radio, but it now includes content distributed through the internet and streaming services. Broadcast automation can significantly impact broadcast productions with large teams and budgets but short production times or live broadcasting.

Broadcast teams may shoot raw footage using multi-cameras, especially for sports, news, and musical performance. The crew may be on location capturing video while the postproduction team is editing and adding sound and visual effects simultaneously from a studio or multiple remote environments. The finished video may be widely distributed over several channels to audiences worldwide.

At the same time, other broadcasters may be capturing videos of the same event, especially in the case of news and sports coverage. When competing crews cover the same event, your loyal viewer needs to know they are viewing your production. Brand consistency is the key to broadcast media loyalty because viewers can readily identify your company. With all the players in the mix, how do you ensure that your videos are readily identifiable as yours? It’s all about branding.

Managing and Controlling Brand Assets

Your viewer’s experience will be curated and predictable when everything is right. Minor deviations may seem like no big deal, but branding mostly engages consumers unconsciously. Brand elements work on associations that build trust. The consumer’s loyalty and trust may be affected when something breaks the .

For video, branding assets are more than just logos, fonts, and colors. Your brand defines the user’s experience when viewing content and in the video. That experience is multisensory. In addition to text styles, graphic elements, and color schemes, your brand also includes audio (music, voiceovers, sound effects), the visual layout of the screen, the chyron location and style, the colorization palette, transition animations, special effects, and much more.

The files that make up these branding elements are media assets. Brand guidelines tell your creatives how to use the assets to produce content that aligns with your brand, but retrieving the correct version of the assets can be time-consuming and error-prone. There is no time for errors or misplaced files in broadcast video production. The camera crew needs to be able to ingest and attach metadata quickly and have it readily accessible so multiple creatives can begin editing the content and preparing it for distribution.

The proper Media Asset Management (MAM) system will optimize broadcast production and postproduction and control branding assets. Your team will readily find current, approved versions of the assets.

Your MAM system is essential for managing assets in broadcast media. When looking for effective MAM solutions for broadcast, key features like artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to enrich the metadata further. Your MAM should support communication, collaboration, automation, and workflow orchestration. Because many broadcasters have vast media archives and often have sophisticated OnPrem investments, a hybrid cloud solution that connects location crews and remote or studio-based editors may be the best fit.

While brand guidelines are helpful, templating and prebuilding sequences can ensure brand consistency and reduce production time. Quickly getting the finished video true to the brand is critical for broadcast media production. That’s where broadcast automation can make a big difference.

Editing software can be integrated with templates to provide further control over branding consistency. For example, in Adobe Premier Pro and After Effects, Motion Graphic Templates allow editors to work more efficiently. These templates can include a wide range of assets, including raw footage, prebuilt sequences, graphics, music, sound effects, After Effects compositions, and other assets essential to branding. Teams can share these templates globally with all the editors on the team, so everyone has access to the most up-to-date assets. These templates can reduce versioning time by 84%.

Ensuring you are taking full advantage of your MAM’s features is essential. Sometimes you have a powerful MAM, like CatDV, but you only take advantage of a fraction of the system’s power. CatDV, with its powerful asset management functions, automation, workflow orchestration, and collaboration tools, is well suited for broadcast production. Bringing in solution experts can help you get more out of your existing MAM. That was the case with our client, New Psalmist Baptist Church. They were already experienced in the broadcast when they approached us to partner with them to take full advantage of CatDV MAM’s workflow automation.

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CHESA has a passion for the nuances of media workflow integration. We have strong partnerships with the best-of-breed technology providers in the creative IT industry. We take a holistic approach in recommending solutions that bring real value and benefits to your organization rather than selling technology for technology’s sake. Our team comes to the table with deep knowledge of the tools and vendors and is ready to address the demands and requirements of your environment and advance your business goals. Contact us today to find out more about how a Digital Asset Management Platform can foster collaboration at your organization.

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Digital Media

Does My Organization Need a Workflow Analysis?

The journey from inspiration to a finished video is a complex one with many steps. When put together, these steps form your workflows, and your organization may benefit from a workflow analysis. Workflows can be direct and efficient or meandering with branches and loops. And the road changes as new tools and capabilities become available.

An organization’s workflow should continually evolve to take advantage of changing technology. Embracing continuous improvement is a hallmark of a high-performing organization. At times, workflows can develop through the work of existing staff. However, there are times when a workflow analysis is beneficial.

Here are some signs that your organization would benefit from a workflow analysis:

  • You want to implement new tools and software that will impact the workflow.
  • Your client base has shifted, and you are producing new types of video content.
  • You are implementing remote work or hybrid workflows, and your existing system was designed for on-Prem.
  • You have experienced growth, and your existing workflows are not maximized for the size of your team.
  • Your organization has hired an influx of new creators. Each member of the team brings new insights, experiences, and talents. A workflow analysis that includes observations and interviews with members of your creative team during the discovery phase can leverage these new creatives’ wisdom and identify improvement opportunities.
  • Inefficient workflows are having a significant impact on quality and productivity. When targets for timelines and quality are unmet, it can be a sign that your existing workflows are not as effective as they could be.

Benefits of Engaging with Workflow Engineers

An outside workflow engineer that provides deep consulting has a bird’s eye view of processes and operations that existing employees can’t replicate due to their role within the organization. These workflow engineers have experience with other production companies and can provide field-proven insights from their years working with a wide range of clients. They don’t just know your team’s tools and software; they have experience with other best-in-class tools and solutions.

When you engage with a solution architect to design workflows, you bring expertise with a high return on investment because workflow engineers are specialists in workflow design. You save time and money every time you produce a new video through efficient workflows.

But the engineer shouldn’t work in a vacuum and implement a cookie-cutter solution. Your team is vital in the discovery process because workflow design is about finding the best solution for your company and your creative team. Every company is different, and the process starts with identifying the goals and objectives you want to achieve with the design and implementation of new workflows. Are you seeking to address quality issues? Reduce production time? Improve access to media assets? Or work with clients in a new sector?

Once the goals have been established, workflow engineers work with teams to observe and identify ways to streamline processes and improve efficiency. Outside consultants offer objective insights not attached to the innovation-dampening perspective of “we’ve always done things this way.” Interviews with a wide range of users enable the workflow engineer to bring insights to the table from employees who may not typically feel comfortable sharing their viewpoints.

The deep consultation that a workflow analysis can do provides valuable information on your current workflows. All this information is documented in a comprehensive document that details the current system and workflows, any bottlenecks that have been identified, and recommendations.

Then the workflow engineer works on the design of your workflow solution. Your company will receive an integration plan that is designed to achieve the objectives.

But the benefits of a workflow analysis don’t end with implementation. An outside engineer can support your creative team post-implementation. And the improvements in efficiency from highly efficient workflows not only save time but create a working environment conducive to high creativity.

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It’s essential for creative applications to interact with network, storage, and media asset management systems in order to facilitate and streamline workflows. Oftentimes, editors experience the opposite effect when these systems are improperly architected and configured. CHESA can evaluate your current setup and make sure the right infrastructure is in place to meet your needs and deliver your product with quality, speed, and efficiency.

CHESA has a passion for the nuances of media workflow integration. We take a holistic approach in recommending solutions that bring real value and benefits to your organization, rather than selling technology for technology’s sake. Our team comes to the table with deep knowledge of the tools and vendors and is ready to address the demands and requirements of your environment and advance your business goals. Contact us today to find out if your organization would benefit from a workflow analysis.