If it were a tag wrestling match it would be billed as the metadata marvels versus the workflow wonders. Happily its no contest but a joint meeting of the EBU's P/MAG (Metadata Advisory Group) and P/CP (Common Processes) groups.
P/MAG is the advisory group that manages all the EBU's metadata schemes and schemas, whilst P/CP has been busy defining generic EBU reference processes concerning file-based production.
With this meeting, an important milestone has been reached by the completion of the News Production Best Practice Workflow, which will now be communicated to the industry.
News production processes have been analysed in detail and, at least for some of them, down to the information (metadata) necessary for the realisation and management of a news item.
This is one important step in the generalisation of a next generation of tapeless service-oriented file-based newsrooms.
Similar work is being conducted for drama production on which the group hope to report completion soon.