Are your people ready?Are your systems ready?

Your goals: Stay competitive. Streamline costs. Deliver new services. Realize new revenue. Gain market share. Meet con-sumer demands.

Your challenges: Once the sole provider of entertainment and news content, broadcast and film companies are no longer the one-

stop-shop for screen-based media. A new breed of content providers is providing fresh

and innovative ways for consumers to access traditional content.

To accomplish these goals, broadcast and

film companies are transitioning from analog

to digital contenta move that is also

compelling these companies to reexamine

workflow processes and systems. But todays

broadcast and film infrastructure doesnt

fully support the requirements of producing,

managing, and distributing digital content

to multiple device platforms. The digital

production process involves a series of tasks that can only be completed through the use

of disparate, disconnected systems. In such an environment, there are many manual processes that must also be accomplished to transfer content and its associated paperwork

throughout each stage of the production

processeven when working with digital

fileswhich leads to inefficient workflows.

As broadcast and film companies analyze

their processes and systems, a unique op-portunity emerges to embrace proven IT

products and technologies and revitalize

their systems and workflows.

Your future: There is a new service solution that will provide the additional support and functionality that broadcast and film compa-nies need to thrive in the digital world.

Microsoft Brings Integrated Digital Production Workflows to TV and Film Optimize Content Workflows, Collaboration with Microsoft Rich Media Collaboration Services

Rich Media Collaboration Services provides a platform for fully integrated collaboration of documents and rich media content. David Alstadter, Managing Director, Microsoft Worldwide Media & Entertainment Group

Figure 1 Rich Media Collaboration Services user interface.

Rich Media Collaboration Servicesprovides a platform for fully integrated

collaboration of documents and rich media

content, says David Alstadter, Managing

Director of the Microsoft Worldwide Media

& Entertainment Group. For example,

using Rich Media Collaboration Services, broadcast and film companies can gain

workflow efficiencies and cost savings by

creating a shared workspace for documents,

video and audio content. These companies

can also build a dashboard for production, sales, and operations executives, providing

real-time project playout and usage infor-mation about video and audio content.

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back-end production systems, such as Digital

Asset Management (DAM), Digital Rights

Management (DRM), Transcoding, Schedul-ing, and Distribution in addition to other

business systems. Rich Media Collaboration Services will also allow customers to build on and extend out-of-the-box Web parts to

communicate with other systems.

In addition to utilizing Connected Services

Framework, Office SharePoint Server 2007, Office InfoPath 2007, Windows Workflow

Foundation, Business Scorecard Manager, and

SQL Server 2005, Rich Media Collaboration

Services is built on Resource Description Framework (RDF), which is an XML-based

format for describing resources. Rich Media

Collaboration Services also implements existing industry standards such as MPEG-21

Digital Item Declaration Language (DIDL)

and MPEG-21 Digital Item Identification (DII).

Because Rich Media Collaboration Services

relies on RDF to store metadata, it can also be extended to support additional data structures

found in broadcast and film companies.

RDF provides us the ability to define custom

ontologies that fit the needs of different verti-cal applications. It also allows us to support hierarchal or graph-based metadata unlike

the flat metadata models that exist in many

current applications today. Finally, it also pro-vides us rich semantic capabilities to support inferencing in the future, says John Deutscher,

Senior Program Manager at the Microsoft

Worldwide Media & Entertainment Group.

Rich Media Collaboration Services also takes advantage of Asynchronous JavaScript and

XML (AJAX), which is a development tech-nique for creating interactive Web applica-tions. Rich Media Collaboration Services also leverages the cross-browser support intro-duced in SharePoint Server 2007, extending

functionality to Windows Internet Explorer 7

Internet browser, FireFox, and Safari on

the Macintosh.

Figure 2 shows how Rich Media Collaboration

Services integrates with Connected Services

Framework to create a digital workflow.

At NAB2005, Microsoft demonstrated Microsoft Connected Services Framework in a digital production scenario for the broad-cast and film industries. Connected Services

Framework enables broadcast and film com-panies to streamline the creation, manage-ment, and delivery of digital content while

integrating business systems and analytics.

At NAB2006, Microsoft demonstrates its

increased investment in solutions for the broadcast and film industries with a tech-nology showcase of Microsoft Rich Media

Collaboration Services. Utilizing Connected

Services Framework, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 information-gathering

program, Windows Workflow Foundation,

Microsoft Office Business Scorecard Manager

2005, and Microsoft SQL Server 2005, Rich

Media Collaboration Services optimizes con-tent workflow processes and collaboration,

and provides real-time business informa-tion and insight into project timelines

and budgets. This enables broadcast and

film companies to create and capture new

revenue opportunities, manage project and

budgets more efficiently, and empower

their people to be more creative. Figure 1 shows the user interface for Rich Media Collaboration Services.

Rich Media Collaboration Services: A Technical ShowcaseRich Media Collaboration Services enables broadcast and film companies to extend col-laborative workflow processes beyond tradi-tional document scenarios and into scenarios that include digital rich media content. As a

platform for integration into content creation

information systems, Rich Media Collaboration Services will be the main collaboration user interface for the content creation process and accessible across multiple divisions, including business, finance, pre-production,

production, post-production, and fulfillment.

Rich Media Collaboration Services will pro-vide a collaboration layer on top of existing

business and production systems. Through

Web services, Rich Media Collaboration Services will provide an abstraction layer into

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3Digital Integrated Workflow

MICROSOFT RICH MEDIA COLLABORATION SERVICES

Figure 2 Rich Media Collaboration Services and Connected Services Framework, working together.

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Provides Rich Front-End FunctionalityWith Rich Media Collaboration Services, content creators have at their disposal a comprehensive toolset of custom Web parts to use to facilitate and speed the production process. Table 1 describes in more detail all of the functionality that Rich Media Collaboration Services delivers to broadcast and film companies.

Rich Media Collaboration Services Tool Description

Ingest Tool Enables ingestion of media clips from digital cameras, laptops, and other hardware into a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system. After the asset is uploaded, a workflow is kicked off using Windows Workflow Foundation that utilizes an InfoPath 2007

form to collect metadata about the asset. Once the InfoPath 2007 form has been submitted, the asset is assigned to the

appropriate project folder(s) in the DAM system for display using the Media Library.

Media Library Contains all the media clips that a content creator has organized into project folders and has uploaded into the DAM system. Enables the completion of multiple tasks when accessing a clip through the Media Library, such as editing metadata associ-

ated with a clip, annotating, viewing and adding a clip to a rough cut editor. The list of tasks that can be customized and

extended to meet the specific needs of each broadcast and film company.

Annotation Tool Enables annotation of specific portions of a selected asset. These notes are saved with the asset so anyone with permission can see them when they access the clip. In addition, using Tablet PCs, written annotations on specific frames within video

assets can be made.

Rough Cut Editor Allows creation of rough cut video or film segments by combining multiple clips into a timeline and adding notes about spe-cific frames or time codes. This rough cut is exported to an Edit Decision List (EDL) in Avid Log Exchange (ALE) format, which

is supported by a majority of editing platforms.

Media Player Enables viewing of an entire asset directly on the Rich Media Collaboration Services interface, by using either Windows Media player or Quicktime. Content creators will be able to view time codes as they view an asset, and step forward/back-

ward buttons will be available when the clip is paused to allow advanced media navigation.

Report Dashboard Takes advantage of Business Scorecard Manager to provide a centralized location to view reports that capture production information, such as time to complete the editing process, time to pass information from one system to another, and asset

usage information.

Supports Seamless Workflow Processes

Rich Media Collaboration Services supports a truly collaborative, end-to-end media production process that is automated by using

Windows Workflow Foundation to coordinate workflows and Connected Services Framework to manage business-related services.

For example, the following workflow takes place when a new video or film clip is ingested into the Media Library.

1. The content creator accesses the Ingest Tool within Rich Media Collaboration Services and uploads the appropriate clip.

This action triggers a notification to Windows Workflow Foundation, which, in turn, initiates an ingest process in Connected

Services Framework.2. As the clip uploads, Connected Services Framework manages the workflow to transcode the content for various proxies

(multiple resolutions and formats) and checks the new asset into the DAM system.

3. When the clip has been uploaded, the producer receives a notification (via e-mail, Instant Messenger [IM], or text message) that the clip is available and provides a link to an InfoPath 2007 form that collects metadata.

4. The producer launches the form, fills out the associated metadata, and saves the form.

5. The metadata is automatically saved with the media asset in the DAM system and will stay with the asset throughout its lifecycle.

6. Resources assigned to the project that contains the new clip receive a notification (via e-mail, IM, or text message) that a new

clip has been uploaded to the project folder.

Note: Windows Workflow Foundation manages the workflow associated with steps three through six.

Table 1. Rich Media Collaboration Services Toolset

4 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, InfoPath, Internet Explorer, SharePoint, Windows, and Windows Media are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft

Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

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