Pharos reports increasing demand for efficient content management.
Pharos reports high interest in its Mediator desktop content management system among broadcasters and service providers attending the NAB 2008 Convention.
Pharos Mediator Compliance Spot Check using Quick Markers
"The transition to more efficient content management is accelerating for broadcasters and service providers," comments Russell Grute, Director of Marketing at Pharos. "Mediator manages content for linear and non-linear distribution, handling programmes for multi-language, HD, SD, IPTV, VoD and mobile side by side, which is now becoming a standard requirement.
"Our latest-generation Mediator integrates a wider range of post-production and graphics capabilities to provide a more efficient workflow for channel management and promotions creation.
Apple Final Cut Pro and editing solutions from Quantel and Avid can be combined using Mediator workflow, transcoding and transfer management. Mediator browse is used for shot selection from anywhere in the system including library, online and archive. This can be passed directly to post-production for editing, enabling more promotions to be assembled within existing post-production infrastructures. Additional content can be delivered more efficiently for the expanding range of new services.
"Broadcasters are seeking more efficient processes to exploit the increasingly wide market for their output: the so-called 360 degree publishing model which includes non-linear platforms such as IPTV. Specific programme types such as news, sport and general entertainment have their own media logistics but in every case we see demand for faster and more flexible operation. The burgeoning numbers of thematic channels are interesting too from a media management perspective as these often require very high efficiency to be commercially viable.
"Our strategy with metadata is to keep it all but only show individual users what they need for the task at hand; too much metadata creates confusion. Search tools can be used to enhance processes such as archive searching. It is now possible to manage metadata and so keep track of multiple states of content in progress, by employing the latest enterprise databases. Using standard web-browser-based user interfaces makes it cost-effective to present this information alongside high quality browse content as many times as required for the tasks at hand."
Pharos also announced at NAB a revolutionary new development in storage for broadcast content management with the integration of COPAN Systems' energy-efficient MAID technology. The combination of Pharos Mediator and COPAN Systems' Enterprise MAID will deliver integrated disk-based archiving with the threefold advantages of higher access speed, greater reliability and lower power consumption compared with existing datatape-based robotic archive systems.
"The operational benefits of disk-based archiving have become apparent in recent years thanks to increasing storage capacity and access speeds combined with ever greater affordability," Russell Grute adds. "A disk-based alternative to data tape may prove a better solution for managing persistent data and where multiple versions of large files need to be stored for longer. Many broadcasters and service providers need to store multiple versions of programme titles for compliance and promos, for example. HD will increase storage requirements and the new delivery platforms such as VoD and mobile mean even more data will have to be stored."
Pharos delivers better workflow management to broadcasters and service providers in television, radio, IPTV and telecommunications. For 10 years Pharos has continually developed the unique Mediator, Playtime and Pilot desktop broadcast management solutions. Pharos workflow offers greater efficiency for library management, ingest, quality control, storage management, archival, transcoding, post-production and playout.
Pharos solutions offer a next-generation platform to better manage multiformat content and enable rapid expansion in playout, presentation and publishing. Pharos software architecture, integration and support services enable disparate broadcast and IT processes to be unified across the enterprise.
Pharos is an open company embracing open standards; we are proud of our people and of our unique development philosophy. Potential clients are welcome to inspect our development methods and fully evaluate the Pharos software platform and its unique distributed systems architecture.
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Published on 24 Apr 2008