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Are your people ready?Are your systems ready?
Your goals: Stay competitive. Streamline costs. Deliver new services. Realize new revenue. Gain market share. Meet con-sumer demands.
Your challenges: Once the sole provider of entertainment and news content, broadcast and film companies are no longer the one-
stop-shop for screen-based media. A new breed of content providers is providing fresh
and innovative ways for consumers to access traditional content.
To accomplish these goals, broadcast and
film companies are transitioning from analog
to digital contenta move that is also
compelling these companies to reexamine
workflow processes and systems. But todays
broadcast and film infrastructure doesnt
fully support the requirements of producing,
managing, and distributing digital content
to multiple device platforms. The digital
production process involves a series of tasks that can only be completed through the use
of disparate, disconnected systems. In such an environment, there are many manual processes that must also be accomplished to transfer content and its associated paperwork
throughout each stage of the production
processeven when working with digital
fileswhich leads to inefficient workflows.
As broadcast and film companies analyze
their processes and systems, a unique op-portunity emerges to embrace proven IT
products and technologies and revitalize
their systems and workflows.
Your future: There is a new service solution that will provide the additional support and functionality that broadcast and film compa-nies need to thrive in the digital world.
Microsoft Brings Integrated Digital Production Workflows to TV and Film Optimize Content Workflows, Collaboration with Microsoft Rich Media Collaboration Services
Rich Media Collaboration Services provides a platform for fully integrated collaboration of documents and rich media content. David Alstadter, Managing Director, Microsoft Worldwide Media & Entertainment Group
Figure 1 Rich Media Collaboration Services user interface.
Rich Media Collaboration Servicesprovides a platform for fully integrated
collaboration of documents and rich media
content, says David Alstadter, Managing
Director of the Microsoft Worldwide Media
& Entertainment Group. For example,
using Rich Media Collaboration Services, broadcast and film companies can gain
workflow efficiencies and cost savings by
creating a shared workspace for documents,
video and audio content. These companies
can also build a dashboard for production, sales, and operations executives, providing
real-time project playout and usage infor-mation about video and audio content.
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back-end production systems, such as Digital
Asset Management (DAM), Digital Rights
Management (DRM), Transcoding, Schedul-ing, and Distribution in addition to other
business systems. Rich Media Collaboration Services will also allow customers to build on and extend out-of-the-box Web parts to
communicate with other systems.
In addition to utilizing Connected Services
Framework, Office SharePoint Server 2007, Office InfoPath 2007, Windows Workflow
Foundation, Business Scorecard Manager, and
SQL Server 2005, Rich Media Collaboration
Services is built on Resource Description Framework (RDF), which is an XML-based
format for describing resources. Rich Media
Collaboration Services also implements existing industry standards such as MPEG-21
Digital Item Declaration Language (DIDL)
and MPEG-21 Digital Item Identification (DII).
Because Rich Media Collaboration Services
relies on RDF to store metadata, it can also be extended to support additional data structures
found in broadcast and film companies.
RDF provides us the ability to define custom
ontologies that fit the needs of different verti-cal applications. It also allows us to support hierarchal or graph-based metadata unlike
the flat metadata models that exist in many
current applications today. Finally, it also pro-vides us rich semantic capabilities to support inferencing in the future, says John Deutscher,
Senior Program Manager at the Microsoft
Worldwide Media & Entertainment Group.
Rich Media Collaboration Services also takes advantage of Asynchronous JavaScript and
XML (AJAX), which is a development tech-nique for creating interactive Web applica-tions. Rich Media Collaboration Services also leverages the cross-browser support intro-duced in SharePoint Server 2007, extending
functionality to Windows Internet Explorer 7
Internet browser, FireFox, and Safari on
the Macintosh.
Figure 2 shows how Rich Media Collaboration
Services integrates with Connected Services
Framework to create a digital workflow.
At NAB2005, Microsoft demonstrated Microsoft Connected Services Framework in a digital production scenario for the broad-cast and film industries. Connected Services
Framework enables broadcast and film com-panies to streamline the creation, manage-ment, and delivery of digital content while
integrating business systems and analytics.
At NAB2006, Microsoft demonstrates its
increased investment in solutions for the broadcast and film industries with a tech-nology showcase of Microsoft Rich Media
Collaboration Services. Utilizing Connected
Services Framework, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 information-gathering
program, Windows Workflow Foundation,
Microsoft Office Business Scorecard Manager
2005, and Microsoft SQL Server 2005, Rich
Media Collaboration Services optimizes con-tent workflow processes and collaboration,
and provides real-time business informa-tion and insight into project timelines
and budgets. This enables broadcast and
film companies to create and capture new
revenue opportunities, manage project and
budgets more efficiently, and empower
their people to be more creative. Figure 1 shows the user interface for Rich Media Collaboration Services.
Rich Media Collaboration Services: A Technical ShowcaseRich Media Collaboration Services enables broadcast and film companies to extend col-laborative workflow processes beyond tradi-tional document scenarios and into scenarios that include digital rich media content. As a
platform for integration into content creation
information systems, Rich Media Collaboration Services will be the main collaboration user interface for the content creation process and accessible across multiple divisions, including business, finance, pre-production,
production, post-production, and fulfillment.
Rich Media Collaboration Services will pro-vide a collaboration layer on top of existing
business and production systems. Through
Web services, Rich Media Collaboration Services will provide an abstraction layer into
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3Digital Integrated Workflow
MICROSOFT RICH MEDIA COLLABORATION SERVICES
Figure 2 Rich Media Collaboration Services and Connected Services Framework, working together.
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Provides Rich Front-End FunctionalityWith Rich Media Collaboration Services, content creators have at their disposal a comprehensive toolset of custom Web parts to use to facilitate and speed the production process. Table 1 describes in more detail all of the functionality that Rich Media Collaboration Services delivers to broadcast and film companies.
Rich Media Collaboration Services Tool Description
Ingest Tool Enables ingestion of media clips from digital cameras, laptops, and other hardware into a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system. After the asset is uploaded, a workflow is kicked off using Windows Workflow Foundation that utilizes an InfoPath 2007
form to collect metadata about the asset. Once the InfoPath 2007 form has been submitted, the asset is assigned to the
appropriate project folder(s) in the DAM system for display using the Media Library.
Media Library Contains all the media clips that a content creator has organized into project folders and has uploaded into the DAM system. Enables the completion of multiple tasks when accessing a clip through the Media Library, such as editing metadata associ-
ated with a clip, annotating, viewing and adding a clip to a rough cut editor. The list of tasks that can be customized and
extended to meet the specific needs of each broadcast and film company.
Annotation Tool Enables annotation of specific portions of a selected asset. These notes are saved with the asset so anyone with permission can see them when they access the clip. In addition, using Tablet PCs, written annotations on specific frames within video
assets can be made.
Rough Cut Editor Allows creation of rough cut video or film segments by combining multiple clips into a timeline and adding notes about spe-cific frames or time codes. This rough cut is exported to an Edit Decision List (EDL) in Avid Log Exchange (ALE) format, which
is supported by a majority of editing platforms.
Media Player Enables viewing of an entire asset directly on the Rich Media Collaboration Services interface, by using either Windows Media player or Quicktime. Content creators will be able to view time codes as they view an asset, and step forward/back-
ward buttons will be available when the clip is paused to allow advanced media navigation.
Report Dashboard Takes advantage of Business Scorecard Manager to provide a centralized location to view reports that capture production information, such as time to complete the editing process, time to pass information from one system to another, and asset
usage information.
Supports Seamless Workflow Processes
Rich Media Collaboration Services supports a truly collaborative, end-to-end media production process that is automated by using
Windows Workflow Foundation to coordinate workflows and Connected Services Framework to manage business-related services.
For example, the following workflow takes place when a new video or film clip is ingested into the Media Library.
1. The content creator accesses the Ingest Tool within Rich Media Collaboration Services and uploads the appropriate clip.
This action triggers a notification to Windows Workflow Foundation, which, in turn, initiates an ingest process in Connected
Services Framework.2. As the clip uploads, Connected Services Framework manages the workflow to transcode the content for various proxies
(multiple resolutions and formats) and checks the new asset into the DAM system.
3. When the clip has been uploaded, the producer receives a notification (via e-mail, Instant Messenger [IM], or text message) that the clip is available and provides a link to an InfoPath 2007 form that collects metadata.
4. The producer launches the form, fills out the associated metadata, and saves the form.
5. The metadata is automatically saved with the media asset in the DAM system and will stay with the asset throughout its lifecycle.
6. Resources assigned to the project that contains the new clip receive a notification (via e-mail, IM, or text message) that a new
clip has been uploaded to the project folder.
Note: Windows Workflow Foundation manages the workflow associated with steps three through six.
Table 1. Rich Media Collaboration Services Toolset
4 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, InfoPath, Internet Explorer, SharePoint, Windows, and Windows Media are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft
Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.
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