In Broadcast - March 2012 - 64

WWW.INBROADCAST.COM | ISSUE 6 - MARCH 2012

InREPLY
John Evans, Managing Director, Transtel Communications Ltd, ﬁelds the InBroadcast questions…
John Evans

InBroadcast: How is your company changing to meet client demands? John Evans: There are three main areas where we have changed in response to the business models with which we come into contact. The importance of managing a single news story; and then publishing diﬀerent renditions of that story through diﬀerent channels is paramount. A printed newspaper is producing the printed rendition in much the same way it has for many years, the same is true of a radio broadcaster producing the studio script. What has changed is the cost to those businesses of also publishing internet based renditions, whether to their own website, or via a mobile app, or even tweeting. The architecture of our software puts the news story at the centre, and everything else moves around it. The second area is the increased use of metadata to tag and then search for a story. We have supported full text searching for years, but have seen an increased use of the controlled vocabulary, the locally built dictionary of terms

used by an organisation to markup their stories. Some time ago Transtel moved to support the IPTC NewsMLG2 model for representing a news story and this model ideally suits the use of descriptive metadata. We have put considerable eﬀort into building software that allows an organisation to dynamically include their own vocabulary to describe both their own news, and news collected from other sources. Finally, we are well aware of the wish to move many services to the web cloud. The improved internet access many organisations can now guarantee is making this model an obvious choice. InB: What criteria does the market use to make decisions for your services? JE: Transtel is a small company with a big reputation for reliability and knowledge of news process. Reliability in the news industry is still a key requirement. Not surprisingly price is the other, especially in days of economic gloom.

InB: Which territories are showing particular activity? JE: Asia in general is showing interest, with India, South Korea and Japan being countries we are putting eﬀort into at the moment. InB: Any innovations ahead that you can discuss? JE: One of the most interesting features we are looking at is in partnership with a company called Temis, specialists in entity extraction. While editors and business managers recognise the value of adding correct descriptive metadata to a news story, the journalists may not feel the same and the resulting quality will vary as journalists may not wish to take the time to add exactly what is required. Transtel has built an automated system that essentially takes the journalist’s story, passes it to a Temis analysis tool, which in turn returns a suggested list of descriptive terms from the agreed controlled vocabulary. The journalist then checks and clicks to add these terms. The whole process takes less than three seconds.

InB: Give some examples of your services in action such as case studies? JE: Transtel has a range of customers across the globe that demonstrated its knowledge of the news industry as a whole. Big name players like the BBC have used our software for over 12 years to receive, parse then distribute news to various parts of the organisation. Reuters have sold our news software to over 500 of its clients in over 50 countries. We have a number of middleeast newspapers, including Saudi Research, and we support the Romanian state Radio. Organisations who want to know what is happening but are not themselves publishers include OPEC, the English Football Association, Amnesty International and the travel agent Carlson Wagonlit. Finally we are used by a number of government agencies around the world. ■

InGEAR
Matthews Studio Equipment Introduces ‘Tinker Tools’
MSE’s Tinker Tools ensure a hands free approach at NAB 2012
At this year’s NAB, Matthews Studio Equipment joins the ‘smaller-is-in’ approach by introducing their new line of Tinker Tools. Designed for those who have made iPads, iPhones and other small devices a vital part of their production package, Tinker Tools are a way to keep everything close at hand – while keeping your hands free. MSE’s Tinker Tools keep your smaller gear close and safe. The MicroClamp is the base of the whole system. It can grip to ﬂat surfaces and other objects or shapes you ﬁnd on set. “Think outside the box and we’ll get it to clamp to almost anything you need, it’s that handy,” says Robert
MUT Camera

Kulesh, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Matthews. He added: “It has dual 3/8 inch and 1/4 inch mounting holes for ﬂexibility, high performance stick pads and an aluminium locking kip handle.” For those who need to keep their phone handy but want their hands free there’s the Smart Phone Adapter that uses the MicroGrip technology and two brackets for secure mounting. “The best thing about it is that you can take advantage of all those iPhone/iPad apps you need on set or location or even in a moving vehicle,” adds Kulesh. Then there is the MUT, which helps mount any kind of tablet or iPad, with or without a protective case. It simply adjusts from 10

inches to 13 inches long and 1 inch to 3/4 inches thick. It works with s t a n d a r d mounting devices and comes with a 1/4 - 20 inch female thread hole on the back of the bracket. No more flimsy rigging just solid support. ■

Camera Ipod

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpzEatLsHdE&feature=youtube_gdata_player http://www.linkedin.com/home?trk=hb_tab_home_top http://www.twitter.com/inbroadcast http://www.facebook.com/pages/InBroadcast-e-zine/226166444076212 http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/inbroadcast/id468652679?mt=8 http://WWW.INBROADCAST.COM http://www.transtel.com/ http://www.msegrip.com/

In Broadcast - March 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of In Broadcast - March 2012