Broadcast Engineering

There’s so much going on in sports production. The technological innovations around graphics and AR, the advancement of resolutions, the distribution via OTT platforms, and the integration of social media all combine to make sports production a hot and dynamic place to be right now.

Especially in today’s world, we believe it is ever more important for factual stories from around the world to get the broadest possible exposure. That’s why we’re excited to once again sponsor the AIBs.

There is a new air about our corporate headquarters in Burlington, Massachusetts, a modest building nestled between the local shopping mall and a wooded bike path you can follow for 20 miles to Cambridge. Everyone seems more polished, and I swear I’ve seen more collared shirts and heels than usual. Perhaps we’re waiting for the paparazzi to swarm since hearing the news that Signiant won an Emmy for excellence in Technology and Engineering.

Broadcast post production facility Envy Post Production has adopted Media Shuttle hybrid SaaS file transfer to move large files securely between business partners and its global customer base. The company serves and produces content for major UK broadcasters and a number of international channels including Discovery Channel and National Geographic in the US.

After a few years of uncertainty and caution, broadcasters and production companies that serve them are beginning to have a better understanding of what “the cloud” is and how it can help produce and distribute content internally and for consumer use. We’re seeing many success stories.

Hearst Television has selected Signiant's Managers+Agents™ technology platform as the file transfer backbone for a new, ultra-efficient TV advertising spot delivery system. Already deployed at three of Hearst’s 29 U.S. stations for testing, the innovative solution paves the way for same-day ad delivery by centralizing, automating and accelerating the digital ingest, processing, management and distribution of local and national TV spots –demonstrating the promise of software-oriented architectures for streamlined ad delivery and faster time to revenue.

A practical approach to standardization requires more than object models and interface definitions to gain serious traction. Consequently, the FIMS Technical Board recognized the need for a tool to help FIMS implementers validate their implementations. Signiant did as well, given the test-driven development methodology we use to develop software. Using such an approach, developers create and code tests to validate an implementation before coding it. This leads to higher quality products that can be evolved quickly.

Moderated by Brad Dick, Editor of Broadcast Engineering magazine, the expert panel features Brad Gilmer, Executive Director, Advanced Media Workflow Association; Michael Koetter, Vice President, Technology Planning, Standards and Development, Turner Broadcasting; and Ian Hamilton, Chief Technology Officer, Signiant.

With multiple sites across London and a mix of outsourced and in-house resources, Five's model presented a number of challenges as it looked to evolve its tape-based operation to a file-based workflow. Yet the broadcaster regarded the move to a file-based workflow as much more fundamental than a technology project. It's a business transformation, driven by a change in culture, enabled by technology.

"It's not signal strength that will be the biggest problem, but speed of light traveling such a large distance," Kidd said. "FTP and other forms of file transfers tend to break down after so many miles, so you have to use a file acceleration technology to overcome any latency issues."