In Broadcast - July 2012 - 54

WWW.INBROADCAST.COM | ISSUE 10 - JULY 2012

InMEDIA

PROVYS: Marshalling Modern Broadcast Operations
By Martin Junek, Commercial Director PROVYS
Every broadcaster has a different approach to business management. Usually, IT departments are asked to assist the broadcast operations in their business processes. Depending on the organisation structures, the broadcast workﬂows are then managed by programming, production and sometimes by ﬁnancial or technical experts. If the processes are well assembled and oiled, the organisation runs smoothly and the top managers do not need to adopt a hands-on approach to the management of their broadcast systems. But the world is not ideal and the media industry has recently been challenged by new ways of delivering content. Traditional “linear” analogue broadcasting has been transformed into digital, bringing a greater choice, but, oh dear, still linear. Some experts say we are witnessing its twilight now. VOD (Video On Demand) and many other related non-linear content delivery methods are available to attract consumers. Although the change over may not be very fast due to people’s natural laziness in being entertained, the media companies have to arrange their
Martin Junek

PROVYS Asset Management

business management systems to cover both linear and non-linear operations. And this is an area where many current business management problems arise. Fortunately for the broadcasters, a white knight exists in the shape of a company called PROVYS, where many skilled programmers design algorithms to cover such issues. Just imagine the amount of alternatives in the world of content rights management. The more alternatives to deliver the content, the “many more” options there are to describe combinations of linear

and non-linear rights. An interesting situation has recently emerged in media asset management (MAM). A few years ago, many vendors scented an opportunity in the broadcast market which spontaneously started to transform into a file based environment. The ﬁrst MAM vendor pioneers recruited from the essence-processing companies and hardware manufacturers. These innovators designed different kinds of post-production MAMs and quickly initiated discussion and development of

MAM automation. But what would MAM be, I hear you ask, without a comprehensive metadata description of the content? And asking further, what are the media assets? Oh yes, there is a deﬁnition. Media assets have two components: content and rights to use such content. And who manages those rights? Well, PROVYS, of course, is the unrivalled leader in this field. And what is content? Well, content consists of essence and metadata. And who manages metadata? Again, PROVYS is the frontrunner and is able to effectively search through databases and reliably ﬁnd the content you need. Tools like PROVYS, help to describe content, to fill in all necessary metadata, to archive assets, and sometimes even to deﬁne and extend the metadata set. And finally, who do you think is in the best position to make a good MAM? No, not GrandMAM, but the best broadcast management software developer and supplier on the market today: PROVYS. Add some workﬂow management features to secure greater efﬁciency and higher productivity, and you are home and dry. ■ users to define an unlimited number of rights dimensions or to expand the system’s preset rights dimensions to ensure that assets are fully utilised and that contractual obligations are always met. Rights dimensions can include such parameters as broadcast resolutions, devices, and revenue models. As new rights dimensions emerge, IBMS users can immediately configure the appropriate rights themselves and log, track, and manage their usage from a centralised platform. To cope with the ever changing nature of rights conditions, IBMS Rights also offers an advanced business rule processor to allow users to define and check new conditions as they are encountered, without having to upgrade the core system. ■

Deﬁning The ‘Rights Stuff’
Multilevel content rights to support a wide range of delivery platforms and interactive services with Pilat Media’s IBMS rights
For broadcasters and media operations steeped in traditional, linear content distribution, introducing multiplatform services can be highly complex – particularly in regards to managing rights. Any broadcaster offering sophisticated services such as TV Everywhere now has to be able to ensure that content can be played on the available platforms and devices. With content potentially being broadcast on so many platforms and formats, distributors are inevitably negotiating ever more complex contracts. So rights management systems have to cope with a dynamic set of rights constraints and obligations which continues to evolve rapidly. So offering services such as TV Everywhere means that scheduling decisions are much more difﬁcult: can the content be shown on all the platforms at the same time, will it be delivered in the correct way and in the correct format; what underlying rights restrict usage, what subscription models are licensed? To answer these questions effectively and efﬁciently rights management has to be an integral part of the scheduling process and workﬂow. Pilat Media has addressed these challenges with IBMS Rights, a comprehensive broadcast rights management solution for both linear and on-demand multiplatform content. A key component in Pilat Media’s Integrated Broadcast Management System (IBMS), IBMS Rights offers centralised and fully integrated rights management across all broadcasting operations

IBMS Rights

and covers contract management, programme finance, and distribution licensing. The IBMS Rights repository gives users a single, central location for recording consumption, usage, and distribution rights for any type of content. Users can query rights availability against any type of acquired or produced content, allowing the organisation to exploit fully all licensed or owned rights on any platform. IBMS Rights, support for customer-defined, multilevel rights management, enables

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