X-dream presents Fabrik in Madrid with Aicox

Representatives from the world of production and post-production have attended the offices of Aicox to attend a day in which X-dream has introduced Fabrik, an end-to-end solution for production and post-production prepared to unify ingestion, post-production, MAM, playout, publishing or monitoring processes in a single SaaS application.

The introduction of X-dream-fabrik has been the icing on the cake of an extensive day in which spokespersons from X-dream, Woody Technologies, FileCatalyst (Fortra), Capella, Projective Technology y Squared Paper They have shown the benefits of their solutions aimed at production and post-production; the same ones that, later, the assistants would discover that they are capable of interoperate with each other to shape a system that seeks to encompass the entire business chain: from production to distribution, including post-production. But let's start with the principle.

Javier Garcia Jiménez, director of broadcast and IT of Aicox, presented the day as a “miniseries made up of six chapters” that ended with a season finale starring fabric. Joanna Eberhardt, responsible for sales and business development of this company, also participated in this introduction to carry out a complete diagnosis of the production and post-production industry, and identify a trend towards work models hybrids.

Next, Aitor Falcó (sales department) and Toni Vilalta (product manager) starred in the first episode on behalf of Woody Technologies, which since 2013 focuses its activity on the creation of advanced software solutions for ingestion and outgest. Both speakers focused their intervention on the ecosystem In2It, a solution built around pillars such as automation, intelligent processing of media y metadata, interoperability with third-party solutions, a commitment to web interfaces, scalability and redundancy.

Although In2It is made up of different modules (Access, Live, Exchange y Social), Falcó and Vilalta have focused their intervention on the latter, designed to facilitate the ingestion of different signals from social networks. Through a demo focused on the recent collapse of the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore, In2It has demonstrated its versatility to carry out joint searches on different social networks; simultaneously select multiple sources; exclude or isolate accounts; benefit from geolocation, or filter by content type. Additionally, the system has demonstrated its ability to automate processes, preset the metadata and monitor transfer processes through a unified interface.

FileCatalyst, Capella y Projective Technology

Eduard Seseras has taken the floor in second episode of the day in an intervention focused on FileCatalyst, Fortra software designed to speed up content transfer, especially in production and post-production environments. He lead solutions engineer of the multinational has begun his intervention by taking stock of some of the most common transfer challenges of files, among which it has identified increasingly larger RAW files that coexist with large amounts of smaller data for NLE, resulting in transfer processes of increasing complexity.

Starting from this panorama, Seseras has explained the benefits of FileCatalyst, a solution that instead of relying on the TCP standard relies on a patented mechanism calling UDP which allows you to send all the contents at once and, only in the case in which the sending of a data packet is not completed, to repeat it again. to send. This workflow, accompanied by threads that regulate bandwidth, allows speed up content delivery regardless of whether the solution works in a local or remote environment. As an example, Seseras recalled a transfer between two locations in Madrid and Asia, which, although with traditional models takes three and a half hours, with FileCatalyst the time is reduced to 17 minutes.

Then, Stefan Puddle, managing director from x-dream-group, has taken the stage to detail the Capella, developed by “nerds” and used by broadcasters from around the world designed to cover all transcoding needs in high environments requirement. With different product ranges designed to operate on premises or in cloud or hybrid universes, products such as Cambria They seek to differentiate themselves from other similar solutions by having an architecture prepared to continue evolving in the future, thanks to a flexible architecture and a “transparent and profitable” business model.

Pfütze showed the attendees at this Aicox conference the system in real time through a demo. In its presentation, supported by the solution Crambia Cluster, a file transcoding with different systems has been shown, including a virtual machine offered by Amazon Web Services, demonstrating the system's ability to work in hybrid work environments. Likewise, the “filter” functionalities have been especially well received, which allow automating processes in transcoding, eliminating color bars, converting different color spaces or treating the audio with tools such as a normalizer.

After a small coffee break, The miniseries has continued with the intervention of Derek Barrilleaux, CEO de Projective Technology, who, via videoconference, has focused on post-production flows with Strawberry. The Projective tool has been presented as a real-time collaborative platform which allows establishing a framework common to work with creative software such as Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects o MediaComposer, among many others.

With security, scalability and ease of integration and use as a standard, Strawberry has been created to directly respond to common problems in collaborative environments that have not been resolved with solvency by other agents. In this way, Barrilleaux has highlighted, beyond enabling real-time collaboration, the system encompasses other threads designed to eliminate duplication; facilitate the search for materials; design an automated project structure, or even provide a flexible PAM platform that allows for archiving, review or approval processes. The system, which will release a 100% version cloud at NAB 2024, there is used in 32 countries by customers such as WarnerMedia, DAZN, The Walt Disney Company, la NASA o The Weather Channel.

Squared paper and the final chapter: x-dream-fabrik

Between interventions or through questions and answers that followed each intervention, the attendees have been connecting the dots to discover the interrelation between all tools previously presented: Why not speed up file transfer enabled by In2It con FileCatalyst, and subsequently enable its transcoding with the Capella? What if we process this content collaboratively with Strawberry?

In this chapter of interconnections and interoperability comes into play Busby of Squared Paper, a solution designed to integrate different workflows and thus achieve efficiency and consistency in production and post-production operations that has been introduced by its manager, Jon McNamara-Dale. After developing ad-hoc Custom software modules to unify systems in IT environments media, the British company decided to shape a tool-kit composed of complementary modules and subsystems compatible with dozens of third-party tools and devices, thus giving broadcasters a “Swiss army knife” in the form of software that is easy to use, modify and manage.

They are wide selection of modules is capable of orchestrating elements such as global configuration management; user authentication; building and automating workflows; scheduling workflows; device control; alarm management and monitoring; executing reports and analytics; the creation of forms, or the possibility of creating custom services and user interfaces. In the end, Busby seeks, above all, “make it possible to build simple solutions to complex projects” without the need to have to write “software from scratch” and shaping systems prepared for continue to evolve in the future.

With the intervention of McNamara-Dale, it was time for the season-finale. Stefan Puddle, once the last piece of the puzzle was presented, demonstrated the versatility of x-dream-fabrik, solution created to complete processes that range from content production to post-production, including planning, ingestion, post-production, MAM, playout, publication, monitoring and reporting. This system deployable in facilities or in modalities cloud not only benefits from the Squared Paper architecture, but from the integration of tools such as those previously exposed to form a unique architecture composed of various interconnected modules.

The day closed with a latest demo in which puddle He tested the system by explaining all the details of his frontend (compatible with touch screens) and exemplifying the interoperability of the system with a process of recording. Likewise, Pfütze invited attendees to pay attention to the future of the solution, which will continue to grow after the summer with new editorial modules and included generative AI integrations to facilitate the processing and publication of all types of content.