TVBEurope
August 2017 www.tvbeurope.com
37
Feature
Handling complexity with workflow automation By David Schleifer, COO, Primestream
Qx IP | Qx 12G REAL-TIME EYE
C
omplexity is how we accomplish great things, but workflows that are complex are often prone to error. Broadcasters
are faced with the challenge of balancing the process of delivering creative results, against staffing and infrastructure limitations. Generally speaking, people are good at tackling complex tasks. In most cases, we document the workflow so that we can refer back, and we create a training plan so that we can bring in new people at a later date. This overhead will have an associated cost, and this is where workflows can be compromised, products rushed and creativity restrained. As we will see at IBC2017, technology is now readily available to solve these problems. Workflow Automation gives broadcasters a way to codify a workflow and relieve users from repetitive or difficult tasks. Errors can also occur in complex tasks as settings, metadata or other criteria must be entered in a consistent way, and processes need to be followed methodically to get the same results every time. In some cases, with metadata for example, you may not even know that you have been doing it wrong until you try to retrieve those archived assets at a later date. We define Workflow Automation as the ability to trigger and complete actions based on status, metadata, user action, location or other critical criteria. The systems that were designed ten years ago were very good at processing what were, at the time, difficult tasks like encoding. Today, those tasks can be accomplished with off-the-shelf hardware or products from different vendors. Now we need a solution to tie it all together, eliminate the tedious tasks and reduce the workflow complexity. Our experience has shown us that the best solution is a hybrid with the scripting/ automation tool defining the workflow, and with
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the ability to leverage third party components anywhere along the way. While broadcasters need the ability to manage
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technical facilities and changing requirements, their primary goal is creating great content,
*Upcoming software release
supplying it within the required formats at a viable cost. This is where Workflow Automation excels. n
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