Signiant Initiatives Further Media Industry Adoption of FIMS

NABShow 2013 Spotlights Work of Signiant and Others on SOA-based Interoperability Advancements; File Movement Leader Showcases Ability of FIMS API to Improve Business Agility

BURLINGTON MA (April 1, 2013) – With the media industry’s Framework for Interoperable Media Services (FIMS) initiative taking the spotlight in the NAB Lab Futures Park, Signiant’s pioneering role in the FIMS initiative is helping to speed adoption of standards-based interactions amongst products from multiple vendors.  At NABShow 2013 in Las Vegas next week, the market leader in software for intelligent file movement will demonstrate its FIMS implementation in action, and discuss the company’s technical leadership in the development of the FIMS test harness and RESTful interfaces for FIMS.

FIMS helps media companies realize the efficiencies of file-based media workflows by enabling seamless interaction among products from different vendors. A joint project of the AMWA and the EBU, FIMS standardizes service interface definitions for implementing media-related operations in a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA).  Signiant’s leadership behind the industry’s adoption of FIMS will be highlighted at NAB:

• Industry leader Harris Broadcast will demonstrate their use of Signiant’s FIMS API in booth #N2503, and Signiant will demonstrate its FIMS implementation including new interfaces and workflow components for Managers+Agents™ software in booth #SL8511. Integral to planned FIMS implementations at some of the world’s largest global broadcast organizations, Signiant’s FIMS API allows Harris Broadcast and others to call out to Signiant to initiate workflow processes through a standards-based interface – a tremendous step forward in device interoperability. “The FIMS initiative gives broadcasters a substantial opportunity to relegate a sea of proprietary interfaces and challenging cross-platform integrations to the past,” said Cynthia Parrish, Product Line Manager, Harris Broadcast.  “Harris Broadcast will leverage FIMS in various ways now and moving forward to help our customers simplify workflows and launch new services.  This includes implementation of Signiant’s FIMS API within our Invenio® Motion media asset management solution.”

• Signiant’s contributions will be included in the “FIMS, A Framework for Interoperable Services in Media Production: What the Market Wants” session on Tuesday, April 9 at 2:00 pm PT in #S227.  A paper by FIMS members including Signiant will explain why FIMS has gained widespread acceptance by providing improved efficiency, agility, facilitating code reuse and avoiding single vendor lock-in. Led by representatives of AMWA and EBU, the session details the paper’s report on lessons learned in an early implementation by Bloomberg, and offers additional insight from other broadcasters such as Turner/CNN and CBC in Canada.

• Signiant is a sponsor of the FIMS booth # N1434, where FIMS members will spotlight the new extensions to the specification which have been requested by users, such as SOA interfaces for repositories and quality assurance to be exposed as services.

“Broadcasters are working with Signiant’s FIMS implementation because they clearly see its potential for delivering the agile workflows of the future,” said Ian Hamilton, CTO of Signiant, and a member of the FIMS technical board.  “At NAB this year, we’re proud to showcase the work these leading organizations are doing along with our own continued innovations.”

Signiant will discuss its FIMS initiatives in booth #SL8511 at NAB Show, April 8-11, 2013.