MediaFUSE Shakes Up Multiplatform Production

One of the biggest challenges facing TV stations today is how to quickly and efficiently repurpose real time traffic, breaking news, weather, financial data and sports scores for multiplatform distribution. This means producing more stories, without multiplying staff, for stations' Web sites and mobile services. MediaFUSE, a new system from Thomson Grass Valley, allows stations to cost-effectively publish up to five times more multiplatform content as they can do currently, according to Alex Holtz, general manager of integrated production solutions. In this interview, he gives the details and says MediaFUSE will be available in October, 2008.

What is the most important thing that MediaFUSE does for local TV stations?

Simply stated, it allows them to compete successfully against new media, with the most valuable asset that they produce, which is video based content. In other words, it allows them to play a whole new game.

And that game is?

It's not just broadcasting over the air. It's over the Web and over mobile devices. To compete with rivals like Google, MSN, AOL and Yahoo, broadcasters have to streamline the content generation process, starting with the field reporters and through the live production process. They need to be able to simultaneously leverage that single workflow into a multi-distribution deployment of that content. So instead of having multiple processes happening in parallel that require extensive staff in a challenging economic environment, MediaFUSE leverages a station's current process of producing news.

Multiplatform production gets easier, so they can produce more of it?

Absolutely. A TV station typically produces 20 stories per newscast, but when you go to the station's Web site, you'll see maybe three or four video clips per newscast. With MediaFUSE, a station can publish all 20 of those stories faster than they can produce the three or four manually. Our process is also much faster because it processes, assigns edit points, packages the metadata and goes through the encoding and transcoding in real time, after each news segment, so you don't have to wait until the end of the newscast to begin publishing to the Web. This means breaking news can go online immediately.

Stations are currently waiting until post-production to publish to the Web?

That's correct. So, in essence, MediaFUSE can publish it faster and can publish up to five times more content than in a typical station. With MediaFUSE there is another huge benefit: We can do both live and on demand.

"To compete with rivals like Google, MSN, AOL and Yahoo, broadcasters have to streamline the content generation process."

What does that mean?

There's nothing magical about doing live. You can put an encoder at the end of a switcher and just say whatever goes over the air goes out over the Web, but many broadcasters are prevented from streaming because of redistribution rights of some content like NFL football. Also we all know that the patience of an online user isn't the same as that of the traditional TV viewer when it comes to watching commercial breaks. So we can replace the traditional over-the-air ads with five-to-ten-second spots. The advantage there is that you can start a noon newscast and at 12:10, start the Webcast, and they both end at the same time because we've been able to manage the online breaks more efficiently with shorter commercial time.

Do you mean you're editing commercials automatically?

We're not just editing, we're replacing them. Stations don't always have the agreements in place to be able to publish TV commercials over the Internet. In those cases, they can replace them with specific Internet ads.

Does MediaFUSE insert the online ads?

Absolutely and actually that's a perfect question and segue because what MediaFUSE provides is the ability to insert those automatically and then, using the new Broadcast Exchange Format [SMPTE S2021]we can tie it into those traffic systems that accept data via the BXF exchange and that allows you to monetize it and track it, and properly invoice it and reconcile the ad, which is something that's missing today in the Web and mobile distribution by the broadcaster. So there's tremendous numbers of advantages with MediaFUSE to create more advertising availabilities while keeping costs under control.

So it provides stats on the ad's performance?

Yes. What we do is generate all the data so, through the SMPTE BXF exchange, we can provide all that data to their master control traffic system.

It goes right into their regular traffic and billing?

Right, so they can have a single reporting structure. It has to be an updated traffic system that meets the requirements of the BXF, which is the SMPTE standard. Quite frankly, one of the major drivers for that SMPTE standard is so that different vendor products and different distribution media can now all be synchronized and tied together.

How does MediaFUSE work?

It gives the journalist the power to mark up a story for multiplatform distribution. Today, broadcasters produce a newscast and then hand it over to a Web publisher, who dissects it and converts it to a more Internet-friendly format. But the journalist is already putting together the story, so why not let him or her get the story ready for the Web? MediaFUSE has a plug-in for iNews or ENPS called FusePRODUCE, so it doesn't change the journalist's comfort zone. The producers, editors or journalists will be able to easily "pre-mark" content with metadata during the rundown mark-up process. This allows newsroom personnel to efficiently add categories, URL links, extended play segments, syndication and distribution points and other tags that will be useful for linking content with similar content, data windows and, of course, targeted advertising and promotional links. FusePRODUCE also provides valuable time saving presets for repetitive profiles making it even easier for journalists to "mark-up" their content.

"MediaFUSE gives the journalist the power to mark up a story for multiplatform distribution."

And they can decide right then how long the story will reside on the Web site?

Yes, and they can also assign it to syndication points. Let's say this particular journalist is doing a story on the Jacksonville Jaguars. The station may have an agreement with ESPN that says any new local material about the Jacksonville Jaguars we want to be able to air under a shared revenue plan. So I can mark that for ESPN and as soon as that particular segment is done, not the whole newscast, but that segment is immediately sent to ESPN.

What if I don't want to publish a story on the Web?

You can mark it up that way. And you can also categorize stories at different levels of resolution. For example, you could have different levels of a cooking segment. One level would be Pot Stickers, another would be type of cuisine. You can get more and more granularity in your targeted advertising that way. And FusePRODUCE is only part of the story. The IGNITE control room system can automatically add in the edit points at the beginning and end of the story and takes all the metadata from FusePRODUCE and synchronizes it with that video element. As IGNITE produces the live show, the encoding is done automatically to create segments that are fully packaged for distribution. Our first Application Service Provider (ASP) integration partner is WorldNow, so we hand them all that information and content and they distribute it through their Content Delivery Network (CDN).

How long does it take for a story that is just going on the air to also begin being available on the Internet?

As soon as a segment is produced by Ignite, MediaFUSE can transcode and transfer the content in real time. So a story can be published and available for on-demand access on your web site in a matter of minutes without having to wait until the end of the newscast. A complete half-hour newscast with a typical count of approximately 15 to 20 stories can be published within 15 to 20 minutes.

Does WorldNow's video player encode it for the Internet?

MediaFUSE handles all the content encoding and transcoding that feeds the WorldNow Producer system with the files and metadata. The content can be reviewed in the Producer and released for viewing in their video player.

Is Grass Valley field testing MediaFuse at a TV station yet?

We have commitments from three different broadcast and cable groups to deploy and use MediaFUSE this summer. I can't disclose who they are at this point, but suffice it to say: MediaFUSE is in great demand. Broadcasters are just waiting for us to finalize the development and testing.

What is your goal for this testing?

Realistically, we're looking at two to three months of testing over the summer. Our official ship date for MediaFUSE is October 1, 2008.

And the goal for testing is to try it in the real world?

That's correct. We have done extensive lab testing, but know that real world deployments is where products are proven.

I've read that the price for MediaFuse would be $172,000 for a small market station and about $349,000 for a large market station and that the price depends on the number of user interfaces. Is that still true?

Yes. We're selling it by journalist seats. Or web publisher seats. It depends on how the newsroom wants to manage it. In addition to that, we have a component called FuseAPPROVE. It is an application that allows a station to process the content in real time and bypass the approval process. Or it can elect to have it stop at an approval station. They might want their Web producer to have the last say about whether to publish or whether to further modify the story in some way.

Another one of the pricing variables is redundancy. How does that work?

Initially, when we designed the product, I remember broadcasters saying we have to have fully redundant systems for over the air, but not necessarily for Web and mobile because it just didn't represent a big enough revenue pie for them. Today, it's become more and more critical and they're starting to ask for more fail-safe methods to make sure that, whether it's live Webcasting or on-demand publishing, that those have fail-safe backup methods.

So you can build in as much redundancy as you want into MediaFUSE?

That's correct, you can have as many encoders, transcoders and storage as you want. You have a basic storage model and then you can add more to store and archive the master show files.

"A story can be published and available for on-demand access on your Web site in a manner of minutes, without having to wait until the end of the newscast."

We have a lot of demand, and we've been putting out budgetary proposals, but like anything else, it needs to go through the budget cycle. We expect a very healthy order backlog by October first.

Is there anything else I should ask you about MediaFUSE?

Whether you're a broadcaster or a green-field starting up from scratch, we have the tools that allow you to be successful in video content production. Broadcasters already have the resources, the technology and the infrastructure for that, but if you're starting from scratch, you can literally create a brand new environment that's fully automated. So if you want to get into content creation and production cost effectively, this is something to look at instead of going with a traditional model from the get-go.

What's a green-field?

Today we associate the term broadcaster with people who have a facility that generates content and the signal is over the air with an antenna. Imagine the same facility being built today, but there's no antenna. It's all IT based.

So it's people or companies that produce for the Web?

That's right.

Can I buy MediaFUSE without Ignite to publish video to the Web?

More on that later.

Will MediaFUSE work with a control room system other than Ignite?

Let me put it this way. We have three phases of launch for MediaFUSE. What I've discussed so far is the first phase. There's a second and third phase that will contemplate looking at non-Ignite applications.

How does MediaFUSE work with mobile content?

It's the same process. The only difference is the formatting.

It automatically formats the pictures to the cell phone screen?

That's right. Our first phase is for browser-based smart phones, so it doesn't have to be a DVB-H flavor or a MediaFLO flavor. So if we just do a browser-based small form factor, then any smart phone with a browser-based viewer can pick it up.