When we talk about automation systems, we often think of the old concept of "master control automation". The reality is that the television industry has evolved so much on a technology scale that today the fact of automating a television station is closely linked to the overall workflow of the same. From the manager to the master control operator, through the programming and marketing or sales offices, all internal units need a system that efficiently integrates each and every one of their technical and administrative needs to have a clean and professional signal on the air.
Here the new concept of automation has its greatest influence on the way television is made today, because in the end it is the return on investment that counts when analyzing and achieving the approval of large engineering projects. It is inconceivable that a station invests large sums in equipment and systems for production, storage, traffic, etc., and that in the end none of these systems contribute in efficiency and flexibility to the operation of the channel under the command of an automation system. Automation is no longer controlling simple VTRs. It is, instead, the system that optimizes and guarantees the company's income.
The basic question that an engineering director or a general manager must ask himself to make automation essential in the projects of his television station is the following: what should I do so that, seeking to improve efficiency, you can reduce operating costs and maximize technical and administrative resources, in such a way that the new channel workflow facilitates the movement of the media internally, the operation on the air, and maximizes the profits? The answer is very simple: automate.
Processes such as ingesting new material, searching and finding material known to exist in archives, transcoding media files to different formats and resolutions, eliminating redundant efforts through centralized storage and Media Asset Management (MAM), telephone sales with the ability to modify high-resolution files by operating on low files Resolution, and the prevention of costly emission errors, such as losing commercials due to having erroneous metadata, are very easy tasks to carry out with an automation system.
Unlike the United States market, where an emission list is not modified on the day of release, in Latin America there are some very particular needs and conditions of automation, such as the management of what is understood in the region by secondary events, last minute changes or the existence of programming or traffic offices 'disconnected' from the master control. These needs or conditions, sometimes helped by limited technical or financial resources and by technical ignorance of new automation concepts, establish in television stations workflows that are not very orthodox or, to be more exact, not very efficient.
Product mentions by the hosts of a program, commercials that are sold while a program is on the air and that must be inserted into the broadcast list immediately, the playback of a live with a small delay while it is being recorded to the video server, the suppression of institutional promos at the last minute when a live show is extended or, these days, when one of our teams has to go to the extension in the World Cup and it is necessary to carry out activities that involve the operation of several technical resources at the same time, are some examples of the day-to-day television in Latin America.
Now, for all these activities to happen accurately, synchronously and smoothly, it is necessary that something as basic as the timecode of the production tapes has been recorded correctly. It is incredible that such a vital part for the proper functioning of a television station and specifically of automation, which must make exact changes to the air between VTRs, video servers, switchers, etc., is not clearly defined. Apparently the differences between the types of timecode (VITC, LTC, etc.) are not yet very clear for some television operators, and therefore for their technical staff. The factory engineer who installs an automation system, accustomed to U.S. operation and in whose mind the last thing a TV station would do wrong is to record the timecode incorrectly, may spend long hours trying to determine the inconsistencies of his system before putting it on the air, while he realizes that his problems are nothing more than the welcome to Latin America, a new world as far as television is concerned.
Once the issue of the timecode is resolved, we move on to the user bits, and although the use of these to identify the tapes in the master control is decreasing, some operators continue to use them as the main means of tape verification. It is so little used today in the United States, that many times the installation engineers of an automation system must go to the latest and most forgotten configuration menu to find the option that defines the way the user bits are going to be read. Barcode readers and more recently the concept of tapeless operations have displaced them significantly in recent years.
The most recent problem to be solved by automation has to do with the recognition of new materials that "appear" on the emission server, without having gone through the ingestion process. The new trend to integrate the contents of post-production rooms (and others) with those of air emission has imposed the need to transfer materials in multiple formats that are often not compatible with each other, making necessary the emergence of the transcoding process. It is here that a good automation system must at least be able to recognize these new materials and their associated basic metadata, and the importance of defining an efficient workflow in which the traffic or scheduling office has previously defined these materials in the automation database becomes obvious again. This new concept makes the use of user bits obsolete, because with it the tapes and their robotic libraries of emission to the air that had so much boom in the 80s and 90s and that today are museum pieces become increasingly obsolete in the workflow.
Sundance Digital, which now operates as an independent entity of Avid Technology, has provided the region with modern solutions ranging from its NXT XPress light system with a simple insertion of commercials, to its Titan system that allows to have fully automated remote operations and centralcasting . In the case of total automation with local operations and even in multichannel configurations, there is the Fastbreak NXT system, which as a great exponent in the region has Caracol Television in Colombia. The NXT XPress systems have brought flexibility and efficiency to the operation with a view to growth in stations such as América TV and Frecuencia Latina in Peru or TVN Canal 2 in Panama. All of them feature mirrored server configurations, balanced by Sundance's Mirror Data Mover. The expansion towards full automation at these stations is calculated in the short term, thanks to the ease of operation of the system. The more complex operations of stations such as Telefé in Argentina and Canal 13 Universidad Católica TV in Chile, recognized in the international arena, have begun to modify their workflows recently, integrating Titan systems that allow them to grow in the future to centralcasting configurations. for your provincial or international channels. Sundance also has automation solutions for newsrooms, such as its Newslink system, with which Argos TV produces several programs for ESPN from Mexico. With Avid's new resources and global organization, Sundance has strengthened its presence in important markets in Asia and Europe. In Latin America, it is planned to continue with the remarkable growth of recent years.
The final word comes from project engineers and managers who are interested in learning how an automation system can improve their profits, taking into account something very important: workflow.
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