The ideal orchestration platform has to be significantly more sophisticated and intelligent than scripted predecessors if broadcasters and media groups are to satisfy the demand for content consumption.
Workflow Orchestration
In today’s world we have consumption of media content on a multitude of devices, each one demanding a different combination of screen resolution, frame rate, codec, wrapper and delivery format. Content management for this level of consumption is not something that can be tackled manually. To achieve operational efficiencies, processes need to be automated, along with the business being in control of defining those processes – without the need for extensive development expertise every time a process change is required.
Workflow orchestration is the only way to navigate this constantly changing media landscape. But the orchestration engine is only a mechanism to carry out the processing. What really enables operational efficiencies to be unlocked – and is critical to success, is metadata.
The Power of Metadata
If you acquire, manage and use metadata efficiently, the capacity for delivering more content to more devices on more platforms is maximised. Inter and intra organisational departments all have individual applications. Whether it be rights information, technical parameters and content descriptions, each business area cares about each of them. But taken together, and adding AI derived metadata, such as speech to text, facial recognition, people detection, text on screen and brand/logo detection – as the content is processed – enables a significant level of automated decision making, and it is this which releases the power of the modern content supply chain. This is the metadata goldmine!
The Mediaflex Metaserver
TMD’s Mediaflex Metaserver provides organisations with a foundation of metadata fields that are commonly used for information required in broadcast, media and archive operations.
At the core of the Mediaflex platform is the Oracle database environment. The Metaserver is the core metadata repository that consists of the database table structures, hosted on the Oracle database platform, along with the flexible and customer extensible data model and entity relationships.
In addition, the Metaserver provides the functionality for an organisation to add their own metadata fields and schema using standard XML formats. Each new schema can consist of multiple metadata fields, with each of the fields being capable of having its own attributes and data types. Each of the new fields is indexed and made searchable, as well as being capable of being displayed in search list results.
Data Model Schematic
Mediaflex Data Model
The Mediaflex data model supports the intellectual and physical description of media content in multiple formats including audio-visual productions, programmes and recordings and their associated assets, as well as content such as images, documents, subtitles, closed captions, CD’s, DVD’s and physical artefacts.
The Mediaflex data model can be logically separated into two types of information:
- Intellectual Information – consists of descriptive information records relating to the content of the material, e.g. description of content, production details, rights, owners, etc.
- Technical Information – consists of descriptive information records relating to the technical and physical properties of the items that hold intellectual content, e.g. format, container, location, etc.
In addition to the data model, the system has extensive asset and workflow specific metadata available. This includes the foundation schemas inherent in every Mediaflex system, which are designed to meet most broadcast, media and audiovisual archive business requirements, along with any additional schema added by individual customers for their specific business needs.
It should be noted that the flexibility of the model enables Mediaflex users to configure their system to meet their individual business needs so more complex scenarios can be created on an asset by asset basis.
Keeping Track
The system keeps a comprehensive audit trail throughout the workflow ensuring that additional operational metadata is made available for business analytics and reporting. All the data collected can be displayed in a graphical way that helps to track what is happening in the system and enable decision making and build ever more efficient workflows with the goal of increasing productivity.
Want to learn more about Mediaflex Data Model? Download our Data Model Whitepaper in our Resources section!
