NAB 2011: Miranda’s VOD Publishing System Integrates Linear, On-Demand Workflows
Story Highlights
At NAB, Miranda Technologies will highlight a new VOD Publishing solution, which tightly integrates regular linear television playout and on-demand content creation workflows.
“Broadcasters and specialty channel playout operators throughout the world have been telling us the same thing: it has become a huge burden on operations to deliver linear content that has just aired via VOD and other non-linear delivery platforms”, says Michel Proulx, CTO at Miranda. “The number of VOD platforms supported, and the number of assets to be delivered, is increasing month by month, and this is stretching their operations to the limit.”
Tightly integrated with Miranda’s iTX IT-based automation and playout system, the new VOD Publishing solution simplifies on-demand content generation by allowing the same assets, workflow, and scheduling system to be used for both linear playout and VOD file creation.
The integration of VOD file publishing within iTX ensures that linear playout schedules can be quickly converted to produce C3, C7, Premium and other VOD variants. This addresses the increased cost and time challenges presented by “TV Everywhere” and “Catch Up TV” initiatives.
The VOD Publishing solution also provides all the elements required to create on-demand content across multiple platforms, with integrated support for Nielsen watermarking, Closed Captions, AFD, and Vchip metadata.
“One of the most important aspects of VOD under the Nielsen C3 and C7 initiatives is that VOD views are counted towards the overall viewership that a broadcaster earns for its programming”, adds Proulx. “But the requirement to include Nielsen watermarks in VOD files has led broadcasters to adopt brute force approaches to creating on-demand content, which in many cases require a complete playout chain to ‘print’ or ‘dub’ the VOD assets. This is no longer necessary with the inclusion of Nielsen watermarks in our VOD workflow, and this represents a huge step towards optimizing on-demand workflows.”
Miranda’s VOD Publishing solution also integrates tightly with its channel branding tools, and this automates the insertion of graphics into VOD files. This capability allows broadcasters to strengthen their brand promotion across multiple platforms. For instance, they can drive audiences to linear channels where revenue is currently concentrated.
Existing iTX users can implement a streamlined and cost-efficient VOD system by sharing their existing iTX infrastructure, as well as their media and schedule databases used for linear playout. However, the VOD Publishing solution can also be used as a standalone system for on-demand video compilation.
Miranda’s iTX is a software-based television production and playout platform, which allows broadcasters and media operators to unify and streamline ingest, media management, workflow organization, schedule management, automation, master control and playout for multi-format television.