In Broadcast - April 2016 - 34


34

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 6 - Issue 4 | April 2016

InMedia

Logging and Compliance
Contributing Editor Adrian Pennington
looks at logging and compliance systems
for broadcasters...

F

rom being a necessary evil,
compliance recording has become
multifunctional recording with the right
tool able to deliver various regularity
and business service purposes.
As the number of broadcasters
operating
file-based
workflows
increases, and with video now being
viewed on multiple devices, it is simply
not possible to manually check each
piece of content for quality assurance.
Broadcasters need reliable, efficient,
and scalable quality control (QC) and
monitoring solutions.
The rise in content volume has
also created interoperability issues.
Broadcasters operating in different
geographies need to comply with
certain
regional
specifications,
like DPP, in the UK. Moreover,
broadcasters must also comply with a
multitude of regulations, such as the
U.S. CALM Act.
"With consumers becoming qualityconscious, non-compliance can lead
to reduced viewership and have a
negative impact on the revenue," says
Bibhas K. Samanta, Product Specialist,
Interra Systems. "Non-compliance
with regulations can also result in
penalties."
Previous infractions have seen
broadcasters face regularity fines as
they struggle to meet the different
compliance requirements demanded
across multiple platforms, coupled
with pre and post watershed, and
region specific requirements. An
example cited by IPV is that content
broadcast in India of someone smoking
has to be preceded by a pop-up
banner informing the viewer of the
upcoming shot. Additionally, running
inappropriate advertising material in

"...non-compliance
can lead to reduced
viewership and have
a negative impact
on the revenue"
Bibhas K. Samanta
Interra Systems

commercial breaks is also frowned
upon. "When media is played out
incorrectly and the broadcaster lacks
tools for fast, thorough examination
and troubleshooting of the output,
the results can be severe," says Gary
Learner, CTO at Volicon.
"Whether on traditional linear
channels or on VOD or OTT services,
the consequences of impaired
content can range from missing
picture or video to loss of subscribers
or loss of ad revenues. Failure to
validate compliance with regulatory
requirements can result in costly
fines."
However, from being "a necessary
evil" as described by Axon CEO, Jan
Eveleens, compliance recording has
now become multifunctional recording
for various purposes.
"These days it is mainly used for
solving disputes with advertisers and
communication regulators," he says.
"The recorded content is also used to
analyse broadcasts and repurposing
programming for different media
(online media or streaming over LAN)."
So, video and audio quality is an
essential compliance need. "Audiences
will soon turn off if the programme
regularly fails to meet high standards
of visual quality such as poor lighting
and focus," notes IPV's EVP Business
Development, Nigel Booth. "The
consequence might not be immediate
but the competitive nature of the
market and ratings drive revenue."
Other prime examples of the
usefulness of compliance regulation
for a better viewing comfort are
protections against the use of
exaggerated
loudness
levels,
especially during commercial breaks,
and inclusion of closed captions
(mandatory for all programmes
broadcast in the U.S).
"As operators pack more and more
high resolution bits into a limited
bandwidth per channel, the issuing
quality is more likely to suffer," says
Larry Joffe, VP Business Development,
Actus Digital. Consequently, in addition
to the basic tool recording their airings
24x7, they require real-time Quality of

IPV Curator UI

Experience monitoring to ensure their
viewers' comfort."
Actus responded with a tool called
AlertCenter, which simulates a
viewers' point of view, and issues
alerts whenever the image or sound
quality is not smooth enough.
It has tools for monitoring the quality
of a broadcaster's authorised channels
globally, and that original content is
not being modified by affiliates. Actus
may be requested to compare the
actual feed of two channels and look
for differences - such as ensuring
the existence or non-existence of
a logo, and some clients request
monitoring of the quantity and quality
of commercial ads added by affiliates.
Content owners may require a tool to
automatically detect whenever their
content (such as a movie, or football
game) is being aired illegally. Most
commercial channels require a tool to
automatically detect and count all ads
aired, compare them to the media plan
and present an affidavit.
Says Joffe: "Many people offer a tool
for detecting commercial ads based on
simple audio comparison, but Actus,
to the best of my knowledge, is the
only vendor integrating both audio
and video detection engines into one
solution for fully automatic detection
of all ads aired. Similarly, Actus is the
only vendor offering a technology

(TrackMatch) for comparing any
pair of channels and flagging even
small differences, based on Image
comparison."
Logging and annotation of content
is key to content owners' ability to
describe content not only at the file
level but also at the frame level.
Not only does this help producers
identify points of interest to assist
fast turnaround productions, but
can equally be used to ID profanity
or vulgarity for editing out prewatershed, or locating a witness name
in a courtroom that needs to be caught
and edited before broadcast.
"Key to getting this right is the
ability to describe it using a controlled
vocabulary, after all if you cannot
search for and find your content then
you may as well not own it," says
Booth.
IPV says it has a significant
differentiator in the form of a
dedicated semantic engine to manage
the metadata into controlled and
automated bundles, these same
principles apply equally in compliance
workflows. IPV did not just build
a sports logger, we saw a growing
demand for controlled annotations
across a wide array of business
functions including QC, Compliance
both technical and legal and editorial
highlights.

IPV Logger
http://www.inbroadcast.com http://www.ipv.com/ http://www.ipv.com/
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