Producer-Driven Workflows For News, Weather And Sports

As the IP revolution sweeps through the broadcast industry, it's all but certain that most video operations will one day be driven by all-IP networks running on standard IT technologies, admits Jesper Gawell, Chief Marketing Officer, ChyronHego.

All types of media operations will reap the benefits of migrating away from workflows based on costly and proprietary hardware and towards integrated, software-based production environments.

This technology evolution couldn't come at a better time for live news, weather, and sports broadcasters as they struggle to attract and retain viewers. Stations everywhere need to find new and different ways of telling a story, but they also need to do it as cost-effectively and efficiently as possible. Standard off-the-shelf IT technologies and IP networks offer real competitive advantage by shortening time to air for breaking news, lowering dependence on specialized staff, and smoothing the path to 4K/UHDTV operations.

ChyronHego has thought long and hard about these issues, and the company has devoted significant resources to helping broadcast news customers make this transition smoothly and cost-effectively. What's required is a sea change that puts news content creators such as producers, reporters, editors, and directors are in the driver's seat. We call this producer-driven approach the CAMIO Universe – a comprehensive, software-based newsroom production ecosystem that empowers producers and journalists to create compelling news stories and deliver them rapidly to air.

An End-to-End, Producer-Driven Workflow
The CAMIO Universe addresses every aspect of news production, whether it's setting up camera shots and controlling robotic cameras, providing software-based video switching, enhancing a story with sophisticated weather graphics, or generating template-based virtual or augmented graphics to breathe new life into a news story.

Producers are empowered to tell a story efficiently and in the exact manner they wish. Editors can build, edit, and package graphics quickly and easily, and directors have a single easy-to-use tool for constructing all of the cues for a show including cameras, switchers, audio, and virtual sets. Art departments can unify the brand across a station, network, or station group and maintain content across all clients from a single interface. And stations can invest in storytelling by making content generation quick and easy, and they can move to an OPEX business model that enables them to run more efficiently and cost-effectively.

News and Weather Together
Because it leverages standard hardware and the existing IT infrastructure, the CAMIO Universe frees news producers from complex technologies that have traditionally created delays and required specialized technicians to operate. A side benefit is that newsrooms are now able to shut down the rumor mill by delivering accurate and professionally produced stories to air almost as fast, if not as fast, as online news sources whose information is often questionable. It's a win-win for news operations as well as viewers.

But the CAMIO Universe is not just about speed to air – it delivers tools that producers and journalists can use to tell a better story with the correct and relevant angle, building in unique features that add dimension and interest to the news. One example of this is weather reporting, which up until now has been accomplished with technical specialists and isolated workflows that are typically disconnected from the main newsroom environment; in some cases, the weather department is even on a separate floor of the building. For news stories that have a critical weather angle, incorporating weather data is slow and cumbersome, if not impossible.

Consider the story of a lost child in a forest. Of course, the latest news report would center on how long the child had been lost and where searches were taking place. But if a major storm was headed for the area, that information would obviously have important bearing on the story. In the CAMIO Universe, the journalist working on the story can simply bring up and populate an easy-to-use template and provide the relevant information. In seconds, the journalist is able to add key weather graphics to the story without interrupting in the content production workflow.

De-mystifying Virtual and Augmented Graphics
For the growing numbers of stations that have invested in a sophisticated and realistic virtual set, the CAMIO Universe makes it easier to take maximum advantage of that investment. The mystique and complexity of virtual and augmented reality are stripped away, and these powerful technologies are now within reach of non-technical journalists. Using the same templated process described for weather above, they can generate highly sophisticated graphics to help tell the story in no more time, and with no more effort, than it takes to create a simple lower third.

It's All About Content
In the end, a news operation is a business enterprise driven by audience share – so naturally, the greater the audience, the greater the revenues from advertising and subscription-based services. Therefore, migrating to an all-IT production environment doesn't just benefit viewers; it's a powerfully compelling business move.

In a file-based, software-driven business model, profitability is tied 100 percent to an operation's ability to make more and better content that attracts broader classes of viewers. That is the essence of the CAMIO Universe, which enables a next-generation newsroom driven by producer-driven workflows entirely focused on creating new content and driving audience share.

www.chyronhego.com

This article is also available to read at BFV online here, page 32.

(JP)