Maarten Verwaest (Limecraft)
 | Maarten Verwaest holds a Master in physics. During his stay at VRT between 1999 and 2009 as a system architect and technology expert, he was the design authority for several large projects, including the first integrated 'Digital Newsroom Production System' (developed by Sony in 1997 and implemented at VRT during 1999 and 2000), the VRT/Belgacom interactive television trial IO (2002) and a multi-channel content delivery system for vrtnieuws.net (2004). As a programme manager for the R&D department (VRT-Medialab) from 2005 to 2009, he was responsible for a number of major research projects, implementing prototypes of a Virtual Modelling system for television production, automation of television studios and post-production systems, and finally a multi-channel delivery system. After he resigned from VRT, Maarten founded Limecraft. Limecraft is delivering technology that supports the entire production process from Final Draft down to the Final Cut. Author of several distinguished publications and often invited as a speaker to conferences, Maarten is an acknowledged subject matter expert on a broad range of infrastructure and system integration related issues and he knows the media production business as the back of his hand. Using his broad network of contacts in this business, relying on his critical appreciation of current trends and capitalizing on his extensive experience as a systems architect, he’s an excellent partner in helping your business beyond the state of the art. |
Abstract
| Television and Tablets – How Tablets will impact the Television User Experience and how this translates to Broadcast Automation and Master Control Systems.
Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and tablet PCs have been around for a while, but it took the development of a new type of operating system that efficiently replaces keyboards and mice by touch interfaces before a market could be developed. Tablet devices are slim, portable, permanently connected to the Internet, and yet powerful enough to enable reading books and magazines, or watching television services. There is an opportunity to improve the existing conventional user experience and a huge potential to maximize the value of existing assets, given that programmes are delivered in an interactive format, i.e. producers must use adopt script editing tools that produce structured information and intelligent master control systems must support these degrees of interactivity represented by the script. Based on an educated guess of the producer’s and the end-user’s requirements, Limecraft and Multimedia Lab have built a prototype system of an intelligent master control system. Based on a single playlist, it is capable of producing in parallel conventional linear television programmes as well as multiple structured outputs optimized for interactive devices. We will present an architecture overview, review which standards are available and discuss the remaining technical and standardization challenges.
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