Streaming for post: is it a reality?

Post, Oct, 2003 by Christine Bunish

Not that long ago, streaming media was the buzz, with many post houses exploring streaming services as a potential new revenue source. While some facilities have added Webcasts and repurposing content for the Web to their offerings, many more are using streaming--or variations of the technology--to speed and enhance the client review-and-approval process. In one form or another, streaming is definitely on the minds of post production executives.

According to a Visual Effects/Dynamic Media Report issued this past summer by TrendWatch (www.trendwatch.com), a Mill Valley, CA-based research firm, 22 percent of US post production facilities cite "using streaming media" as a business challenge they must address in the next 12 months, Eighteen percent of all facilities said they plan to buy one or more servers, which they plan to use for streaming video', four percent plan to buy hardware/software tools for streaming media.

STORE AND FORWARD

"in the dotcom's hey-day, people tried to get into streaming as a business, putting primary content online:' recalls David Heppe, VP of marketing and business development at Telestream (www.telestream.net) in Nevada City, CA. "But the most business we see in the post space is for approvals."

One application commonly referred to as streaming but which is really a store-and-forward process uses Telestream's ClipMail encoding appliances to take video from editing systems or tapes, convert them into MPEG files and send them over an IP network to an FTP server or another ClipMail appliance for review. Some 2,000 ClipMail systems are in use worldwide.

Among ClipMail fans is the forward thinking ad agency BBDO, which requires post houses working with the agency to send archive versions of spots via ClipMail instead of videotape. On the BBDO side, Telestream's Flip Factory transcoding engine receives and ingests the files, creating QuickTime and Windows Media files for online viewing and archiving a high-quality MPEG copy. Artesia software provides database management of metadata and the user interface to view the material on a TV monitor.

Ascent Media in Burbank uses FlipFactory to make streaming proxies for review and approval, while Bloomberg taps the device to repurpose broadcast content for online, CNN bureaus worldwide use ClipMail to send spots for regional broadcasts to the network's hub in Atlanta, "Even if it takes half an hour or more over ISDN lines, it beats the two or three days shipping tapes with courier services," Heppe reports.

At IBC '03, Telestream introduced FlipFactory News, which integrates with newsroom systems and is compatible with Pathfire IP delivery systems in the US. Shipping this month is MAPreview, a powerful multifunction tool that provides the convenience of multifeed media recording, organization, search and viewing in a single desktop appliance. "It's targeted at recording live feeds and related applications," says Heppe, "Broadcasters can record for compliance, news analysis or to repurpose newscasts for the Web."

CLIENT FEEDBACK

Santa Monica's Nomad Editing Co., Inc. (www.nomadedit.com), which has had a Telestream ClipMail for close to four years, originally acquired the appliance for its work with Goodby Silverstein & Partners/San Francisco. "We had been exploring different ways to get client approvals;' says VP/partner Scott Carleton. "Satellite and Vyvx were very expensive and difficult to schedule, and systems requiring proprietary hardware and software on each end, like Jazz Media Network, were overkill for us." But a recommendation from a Jazz Media employee to look at ClipMail paid off.

"It did not have all the bells and whistles back then, but we saw that ClipMail would take us where we wanted to go," Carleton recalls. "It had everything we were looking for: It was a relatively low-priced unit, it used the Internet and the only cost was the unit itself,"

Carleton initially figured ClipMail would save Nomad money on dubs. He estimates the edit house is spending about the same amount on dubs--"there's still a comfort factor with overnight dubs." he says--but profits by increased client feedback as flies are shipped back and forth for review during the course of a day Nomad sends files directly to agencies with ClipMail appliances, like Goodby and BBDO, and uses service bureaus worldwide to receive ClipMail files and deliver dubs to agencies without ClipMail systems. Nomad also posts MPEG files to its FTP site for client perusal,

"You have to have the store-and-forward capability in some form or another today; it's an expected service now," Carleton notes.

Nomad has found an additional use for its ClipMail appliance. "Since ClipMail works in the digital world, it doesn't care about PAL or NTSC, which is great for international work," Carleton reports. "We can also load files into ClipMail in PAL and play them back in NTSC or make approval dubs in NTSC" with ClipMail acting as a standards converter,

COLLABORATIVE ENVIRONMENT

When San Jose-based Exavio (www.exavio.com) was formed it focused on VOD (Video On Demand) for the cable industry, building systems providing very high-capacity streaming of compressed MPEG files. But it soon found other applications for its system in broadcast and post production environments, seeking a more collaborative work environment that knows no facility or geographical boundaries.