Keywords
Ingex, Avid, AAF, archive, libMXF, FFmpeg, open source
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Abstract
Many organisations are moving from video tape based television production to
file-based production. A number of difficulties arise during this migration including
unexpected costs, workflow complications and lack of equipment interoperability.
Such difficulties can be solved in practice using novel applications of low-cost IT
equipment, software tools and industry standards for file formats.
This paper describes a number of problems of file-based production which arise
in practice and demonstrates the techniques used to solve them using real-world
examples from BBC productions.
The application of commodity PCs to achieve flexible real-time software encoding
in a multi-camera TV studio is shown. Software tools to overcome
incompatibilities between different MXF implementations are described. The
design and format of MXF files for long term programme archival on LTO-3 data
tape is explained. We show how file-based systems can be interfaced to legacy
broadcast equipment. Finally, the problem of migrating from SD to HD production
is shown to be mitigated by the HD capable nature of many IT components.
This document was originally published in the Proceedings of the International
Broadcasting Convention, September 2007.
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