Broadcasters' TV facilities are going through a second phase of digitisation moving rapidly towards end-to-end digital IT-based tapeless production. In this context, building multi-vendor interoperable production infrastructures is a challenge.
Vendor lock-in
The destiny of television production is to be a mosaic of systems from different vendors and in-house developments. Interoperability is key, but today it is imperfect and hard to achieve. Furthermore, scalability is limited due to the proprietary nature of solutions that vendors are trying to use to 'lock-in' their customers.
| More interoperability needed
In a world where no vendor can offer complete end-to-end solutions anymore and where the interconnectivity of systems has become so complex, it is a serious risk for a broadcaster to be dependent on a single party. Interoperability and flexibility are more important than ever for both vendors and clients. |
IT system integration is like a puzzle |
Broadcasters' input needed
The EBU Production Management Committee (PMC) has recognised the still growing importance of IT but also of new concepts such as Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) and their impact on broadcast facilities. The committee believes it is very important to identify approaches that facilitate interoperability, flexibility and scalability and that avoid vendor lock-in, so future designs will not suffer from system integration problems.
The EBU has set up a dedicated Project Group to address the above and invites broadcasters to express their needs and/or to join the work. Contacts: Dr Hans Hoffmann and Jean-Pierre Evain .