Transmedia distribution: a difficult challenge for broadcasters

Transmedia distribution and content reformatting are, perhaps, two of the most complex challenges facing the industry. Deciding what type of system and workflow is appropriate is vital to ensuring forward-thinking investment and proper monetization of media assets.

The distribution of multiplatform and transmedia content (since we are dealing with different platforms and media), making the most of the assets and distributing them on alternative and parallel platforms, optimizing resources to output at different times, platforms, versions and devices, accompanying the content to the user in any circumstance constitutes, today, one of the main challenges of our industry.

An example of this is found in payment services, where the consumer who has paid for content increasingly demands to see it where, how, when and through any type of screen with optimized quality.

In this context, broadband TV is gaining special strength with the rise of OTT (Over-the-top Television), an acronym that summarizes a type of television distributed over the Internet thanks to broadband, both in live streaming and on demand.

Under this perspective, still in development, users would pay for the content they want to see wherever and whenever they want. These programs can come from something already broadcast free-to-air, a simulcast or an adapted and reformatted version. At the same time, advertising will have a lot to say in these new on-demand models that aim to monetize content that remains king.

Opportunities and challenges

The continuous expansion of content distribution methods is creating new opportunities and, at the same time, enormous challenges for broadcasters in a market in which telecommunications operators and content providers are taking positions in a field until now limited to traditional broadcasters.

Although even having a successful program in primetime was a guarantee. However, at these moments, the viewer distributes his attention on screens ranging from a smartphone to a home-cinema macro screen. For this reason, approaching him in new ways is the key.

In this new context and in order to optimize processes to produce more and better, the word that resonates most strongly in the market lately is cloud computing. The idea of managing assets from anywhere is already a reality that allows, for example, to capture images in a remote place, upload them to an “ethereal network” in I don't know where so that, starting from a 100% collaborative concept, they can be managed together with other remote or local material and edited, voiced, inserted graphics and made available for playout on any type of platform and resolution.

This new concept would mean the relocation of professionals and infrastructure with the consequent cost savings and greater use of available assets.

But, the possibility of professionals working simultaneously on the same project from different workstations or their own laptop requires changes in mentality in both creation and distribution.

For these collaborative work environments, an asset management system is essential. It is necessary to track the contents and have some type of method that verifies the status of the assets. In addition, the transfer of large files over the Internet will have to be accelerated since, from now on, many collaborators will not be in the same installation. While a classic standard FTP concept is very slow, speeding up file transfer will be essential and a determining factor between the failure or success of a solution.

Where is the tape?

And in all this new framework, where is the tape? It is evident that this support, compared to a solid state whose capacity appears to be “infinite”, has been relegated to massive archives in a day-to-day life marked by files. One of the questions that floated in the atmosphere of Las Vegas is how to manage the enormous amount of material that reporters, editors and documentaries freed from the tyranny of the tape are generating with endless hours of material per day. It is evident that it is extremely easy for video assets to get out of control, complicating any search task if there is not correct use of metadata and indexing of all media with an ever-present question: what do I keep?

Unlike other industries such as banking, broadcasting has always tended to have a certain anarchy in the management of its assets, which we now have to put an end to if we want to monetize the investment. Along these lines, the technology used is taking giant steps that would be of little value if not used and implemented rationally.

Precisely one of the areas that is benefiting from new work schemes is post-production and technology applied to graphics, virtual scenarios and augmented and immersive reality techniques. What was economically unfeasible just a few years ago is today accessible to medium and small broadcasters and production companies.

Deciding what type of system and workflow is right will be vital to ensuring a forward-thinking investment. Since asset management systems tend to combine production and final delivery processes, opting for a correct workflow is a strategic decision that must be planned patiently. Without this planning and training of personnel, whatever the technology chosen, it would be a wasted investment.