The organisers of last month's trade show, BVE London, have now posted a selection of the seminar videos online for free viewing. One in particular I recommend - though maybe save it for a workday! 'Why are we still not tapeless' asks Mark Harrison, (aka controller of production at BBC North). It's the same Mark Harrison who heads up the Digital production partnership (mentioned at the last wefcpug in passing) and he's a good, engaging speaker.
Like many of us in small independent production, you may be thinking this question is a bit last-year, if not last-decade, but as Mark himself admits, there have been several stumbling-blocks over the path to a fully tapeless TV production, especially at the far end, the delivery to the broadcaster. Some things, it seems, just don't scale well from small indie to big broadcaster. If you collect buzz-words, they all appear: metadata, essence, deep archiving - but this is not a dry technical talk.
If you haven't considered the matter yet, or don't even know what's coming, the first couple of minutes will get you hooked, I'm sure.
The video is low-res by today's standards for online, and the camerawork is the expected compromise that comes from the constraints of a live trade-show presentation. But the audio is considerably better than another seminar that I attended in person (this one I missed, thanks to First Great Western) and you'll gain a couple of insights too into what life must be like in the BBC's new Salford HQ.
You'll also gain insight into what sort of person gets to be a controller of production: though I must confess that I have no idea whatsoever what a controller of production actually does.
Views welcome at the wefcpug
Link for menu page here
Direct link to video here
(Sorry, nasty .aspx links - you may need plugins. You may not even be able to play. Worked fine for me on Firefox / chrome browsers in Snow Leopard / Lion)
Like many of us in small independent production, you may be thinking this question is a bit last-year, if not last-decade, but as Mark himself admits, there have been several stumbling-blocks over the path to a fully tapeless TV production, especially at the far end, the delivery to the broadcaster. Some things, it seems, just don't scale well from small indie to big broadcaster. If you collect buzz-words, they all appear: metadata, essence, deep archiving - but this is not a dry technical talk.
If you haven't considered the matter yet, or don't even know what's coming, the first couple of minutes will get you hooked, I'm sure.
The video is low-res by today's standards for online, and the camerawork is the expected compromise that comes from the constraints of a live trade-show presentation. But the audio is considerably better than another seminar that I attended in person (this one I missed, thanks to First Great Western) and you'll gain a couple of insights too into what life must be like in the BBC's new Salford HQ.
You'll also gain insight into what sort of person gets to be a controller of production: though I must confess that I have no idea whatsoever what a controller of production actually does.
Views welcome at the wefcpug
Link for menu page here
Direct link to video here
(Sorry, nasty .aspx links - you may need plugins. You may not even be able to play. Worked fine for me on Firefox / chrome browsers in Snow Leopard / Lion)