Time Adjustment in broadcast

In today’s media industry, the only constant is change. The volume and variety of media is increasing as consumers become more tech-savvy and develop new mobile media-viewing practices.

Just as the new generation of mobile viewing devices is transforming consumer expectations, so too is new technology revolutionising content creation and programme production workflows. In news, we are seeing more cameras and more shots. With the evolution of smartphones, every mobile phone is a news camera. News broadcasters must develop ways of accessing this new camera resource and integrating it within their workflow in ways that help them break the news story first and remain ahead of the field.

In TV show production, we see a new generation of low-cost solid-state cameras. As a direct result of this shooting, ratios are going crazy – 1000:1 is not uncommon on reality shows. The $64 million question is: how do programme producers use this vast source of material and still maintain operating efficiency?

The challenges don’t stop in programme production. The days of only linear TV broadcasts are long gone – publishing now means pushing finished media to multiple formats and platforms. SD, HD, broadcast, cable, IPTV, websites, OTT – up to 20-30 versions of the same content is often needed. So what impact is technology having on this developing scenario? We can see that the proliferation of cameras and viewing devices is driving these changes in one area, while a growing trend of distribution via IP networks is driving it in another.

Today, tape and linear video is no longer the core technology for distribution. Instead, broadcasters need to select the most appropriate technology to respond to changing demands. And at the same time, they need to create opportunities to increase new revenue generation.

While baseband video will be with us for some time, the strong trend today is towards intelligent automated file-based workflows, covering all processes from ingest through production, transcoding, packaging and publishing. Meet this challenge with fit-for-purpose technology and broadcasters find themselves in a technical environment where increased production capacity and flexibility are possible without increases in labour costs.

In a file-based workflow, improvements in encoding algorithms equate to better image quality at lower bit rates, which, in turn, mean improved viewer retention and lower data distribution costs. All of this requires huge processing power. Advances in GPU and CPU technology mean that one modern media processing server can deliver as much capacity as five to ten conventional servers, which results in massive savings in rack space, power and air-conditioning.

What really gets broadcasters excited is brand-new opportunities to generate revenue streams. One new technology that provides this is ‘Time Adjustment’, which enables re-timing file-based content. It intelligently adjusts the running time of shows and segments, using new time compression algorithms that deliver superior quality and faster turnaround times. For content owners and distributors, adjusting the run time is important, as it creates additional revenue opportunities and decreases distribution costs.

Modern time adjustment solutions intelligently interpolate the desired time change over the duration of the content in a way that produces no noticeable visual or audible artifacts. It can adjust an existing asset’s running time from 1% to 10% without any perceived loss in quality. Time adjustment returns a substantial ROI with the ability to increase advertising avails throughout the day. This will be particularly interesting for companies working with content from other regions where the ad timing is different to their current format.

George Boath is VP International Sales, Enterprise Products at Telestream.