Doing It For The Cause...

ContentAgent, the workflow management and automation tool from ROOT6 Technology, was one of the first products to receive AMWA certification as part of the DPP's Compliance Programme and is in daily use by production facilities and post houses to submit broadcast deliverables in the newly defined format.

"The DPP initiative is a particularly worthwhile cause and we are heartened that ContentAgent has been recognised by an independent external assessment," said Owen Walker, Head of Product Management at ROOT6 Technology. "ContentAgent is all about reducing time and effort by automating commonly applied processes and the AS-11 UK DPP workflow is a great example."

"One of the main challenges facing content producers is that the specification brings together several different practices into one delivery process – stringent QC practices, precise metadata schemas, and specific technical requirements. However, with a well thought-out workflow and the appropriate tools, all these can be neatly integrated into an automated streamlined process.

"The technical requirements are far-reaching. Creating the required video and audio essences to go into your MXF OP1a wrapper is an important and detailed process. The point is, you need a solution that will deliver the right essences, repeatedly, and with the minimum of fuss.

"The metadata fields, both for essence and production data, are equally well defined in the DPP standard and need to be handled with care. Filling out each of these fields every time you deliver a file can soon turn out to be a significant bottleneck in the delivery process. In many cases, technical and production metadata will be added at different points and it's important to use a tool with advanced metadata handling capabilities, to easily import the required information into your file.

"ContentAgent's advanced workflow automation features enable the integration of all these practices into one seamless workflow. The DPP Delivery Node within ContentAgent encodes your sources to the exact required format and wraps your file, injecting all the required metadata fields, making life considerably simpler for those involved in this potentially complex operation."

At IBC, ContentAgent was shown with some new augmentations to the DPP UK deliverables workflow, including Metadata Update and Insert Edit. Here, users will be able to make last minute changes without the need to re-transcode or re-wrap the entire file. ContentAgent users also benefit from the system's integration with third party automated file-based QC, and visual QC via SDI/HDMI playback monitoring.

Commenting on the loudness aspects of the DPP delivery specification, Matt Ward Senior SI Engineer and audio guru at root6 said: "As we are all aware, the delivery of files to EBU R-128 is a mandatory requirement. 'File Delivery Day' was October 1. So how has delivering audio to EBU R-128 affected Post-Production workflows?

"To recap, our programme material must now meet the following requirements:

• Programme Loudness Level -23dB LUFS
• Maximum True Peak Level -1dB True Peak (ideally <-3dB True Peak)
• Loudness Range should be reported truthfully in the programme Metadata.

"In discussions with dubbing mixers, it has frequently been noted that the adjustments to meeting R-128 has been easier than they perhaps first anticipated," Mr Ward continued. "This is not a great shock for those that are aware of how the recommendations were initially formulated; in fact it was very much a goal of the PLOUD working group.

"A competent mixer working traditionally with PPMs should be able to get a basic mix close to the mandated Programme Loudness Level without significantly changing working practice.

"Furthermore, the maximum permitted peak level has given a real world increase in dynamic range available for programme makers, allowing brick wall programme limiters to be backed off from their traditional settings. Working to an oversampled 'True Peak' measurement, prevents converter clipping during processing for broadcasting and at the point of delivery.

"In theory, this all suggests an ability to deliver compliant audio with just a traditional PPM in the mix suite, an oversampling brick wall limiter across the mix and a file based compliance process such as ContentAgent with automated QC, post-mix.

"Whilst this should produce reasonably mixed and compliant content, it is strongly advised that any facility in which final audio is mixed has appropriate loudness metering, and that the programme is as the mixer desires before checking with software. Most correction tools should do little damage to the audio but, as ever, a real-time human QC process is indispensible."

The article is also available to read in BFV online.

(IT/JP)