Content Management

IRT develops various methods and techniques to ensure comprehensive workflows in the field of IT-based TV production. IRT’s specialists analyse structures already in use by broadcasters and implement new models which are customised to respective operational requirements.

Content Management in TV Production

The management of programme content is essential in an IT-based production environment. This is accomplished either with a central Content Management System (CMS) or by means of a distributed system. In both cases, applications are required to support the production process and provide the necessary functionalities.

IRT advises broadcasters on the handling of metadata for production and exchange. And the design of data models benefits from our years of experience not only with developing our own software tools, but also with international standardisation. For example, IRT is playing a key role in the introduction of Digital Rights Management (DRM) and Copy Protection Content Management (CPCM).

Further information on Video Archives

VITALAS Project

Video & image Indexing and Retrieval in the Large Scale

VITALAS is an innovative project designed to provide advanced solutions for indexing, searching and accessing large scale digital audio-visual content. The strength of this initiative is the application of advanced technology to real use-cases, which reflect the expectations and concerns of major European multimedia archives.

VITALAS plans to deliver a reliable and efficient preindustrial prototype, allowing intelligent access to multimedia professional archives. The original VITALAS technology will not only be applied in B2B applications (business-to-business), but will also reach out for larger public adoption, by addressing consumers’ need for efficient and reliable multimedia content search engines.

VITALAS addresses three major challenges

Cross-media indexing (automatic annotation) and retrieval

Large scale search techniques

Visualisation and context adaptation (personalized services considering both on- and off-line)

Further information on VITALAS Project

WMP Project

The “Technologies for Media Production” project, supported by the Bavarian Ministry of Economy, Infrastructure, Transport and Technology is developing a distributed system for film and broadcast work which will offer seamless exchange of data between film and television production. This will allow productions to prepare content in an integrated production-, postproduction-, and archiving environment for a variety of output formats, such as Digital Cinema, television, HDTV and mobile display devices.

The technologies for the project are being developed by the Fraunhofer Institute, the Institut für Rundfunktechnik (IRT), CinePostproduction Bavaria Bild & Ton, Audio Video Technologies, Dalet-a.n.n., IRIDAS and associate partner Bayerischer Rundfunk. The objective of the project is to develop tools, interface solutions and formats which will allow for easy access and data exchange among production systems.

Homepage of WMP Project

CHORUS Project

Within the project CHORUS, IRT supports the setting-up of a platform for knowledge exchange in the area of audiovisual search engines promoting the interaction and coordination of different EU projects concerning search engines according to the European Research Directives.

Regularly organised workshops and conferences provide an excellent base for interested parties from industry and research to gain insight in various currently running and new projects as soon as to collaborate for instance in the field of standardisation.

The main objective of this project is the extensively automatic generation of metadata at very high semantic level as the basic requirement for content search in the production as well as in the online area.

IRT has published a vision document in Sept. 2009: New search technologies change the world of TV

Homepage of CHORUS Project

Control Protocols (Command & Control)

In future production systems, “command and control” will not merely refer to the controlling of equipment, but also to communicating information above and beyond the process stages. Such information is generally designated as metadata (e.g. BMF), for they refer to corresponding programme content and their fragments.

IRT examines the demands placed on next-generation control protocols as well as potential solutions already created by industry specialists. MOS (Media Object Server Protocol), VDCP (Video Disc Control Protocol), and SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) in particular – in addition to proprietary API – currently play significant roles in the conception and operation of production systems.

The MOS protocol facilitates the communication of system components, which are important during the production of a newscast. This technique is also well-suited to other types of productions such as review programmes. The MOS protocol can – to name but a few examples – control character generators, video servers, and teleprompters. It is also capable of receiving metadata throughout the production process. IRT’s experts are currently generating concepts for an extended control protocol, which would reproduce the current function of MOS as well as optimise the flow of metadata during the production process.

Content Management