What Will 06 Look Like to the Historians of the File-Based Revolution?

What Will 2016 Look Like to the Historians of the File-Based Revolution? by Vidispine March 9, 2016 Stuff We Like

We had the fortune of using Steve Sharman as a sounding board for our 2016 prediction blog post. We were so happy talking to him that we asked him to write his own guest blog post on the state and future of file-based content workflows. Here it is, Steve's answer to what 2016 will look like to the historians of the file-based revolution?

I had the privilege of speaking to a group of media technology students at Salford University in the UK a couple of weeks ago. Talking through some of the usual topics associated with file-based workflows, I was struck again by how long the transformation journey that we're all still on, has been. To put things into perspective, in the late 1970s following the success of Star Wars, George Lucas established his Computer Division with the aim of improving editing processes, special effects and audio processing using computers. So much came from this one initiative[1] - Pixar, THX Sound, a Digital Audio Workstation called the Sound Droid and a non-linear editing platform called the Edit Droid (subsequently purchased by a young and growing Avid) - that you could be forgiven for associating the Lucasfilm Computer Division with the start of the move to file-based content workflows. Forty years later, we're still on that journey - so what will 2016 look like to the historians of the file-based revolution?

Forty years later, we're still on that journey - so what will 2016 look like to the historians of the file-based revolution?

In some ways, 2016 seems likely to be like other years in the recent past - commercially quite tough, lots of distractions caused by things that may well have a low impact in the short-term - this year's is Virtual Reality (VR) and new for 2016, the continuation of the squabbling around whose view of the world is going to gain the most backers from the point of view of a transition to IP-based production. In some others, 2016 looks like it could be a bit of a rollercoaster, with moments of terror and elation, depending on the part of the industry that you're working in! Let's speculate

I think 2016 is the year that we finally see some public and aggressive moves into the cloud for broadcasters and content companies, particularly for supply chain logistics, and particularly for those who either don't yet have significant investments in in-house MAM and workflow systems - including some surprisingly significant names in the US - or whose first generation tapeless systems are heading for the end of life. Keep an eye on companies like SDVI who are building cloud-native supply chain systems CFO's and CTO's looking at cost/capability trade-offs are increasingly going to go straight to the cloud rather than trying to run complex internal technology build-out programmes they don't have the time, or the increasingly the appetite for risk especially given that getting a return from Big MAM projects continues to be a source of concern.

It would be nice if we could find a better word than cloud to describe the kind of utility services offered by Amazon, Microsoft and Google

Amazon Web Services will continue to grow in importance to the broadcast and media sector. Transparent pricing, versatility and the sheer variety of services offered by that platform means that organisations looking at cloud archiving, transcode and rendering, some business systems and even large-scale data analytics, would be missing a trick if they carried on building their own systems rather than making use of the building blocks that Amazon has available to be exploited. AWS appears to have become to new default provider when it comes to a lot of infrastructure services for broadcasters, and it feels like Microsoft and Google would have to do something pretty spectacular to change that.

As an aside, it would be nice if we could find a better word than cloud to describe the kind of utility services offered by Amazon, Microsoft and Google because it's become such an overloaded and confused phrase - but I'm not hopeful on that one. After all, we're the industry that keeps having a problem remembering that MAM and workflow systems are not one and the same

I think (and hope) that 2016 is the year that we finally see the demise of semi-manual workflows

As well as the advance of the cloud, I think (and hope) that 2016 is the year that we finally see the demise of semi-manual workflows the traditional cobbling together of scripts, watch folders and manual intervention. There are now so many new content services and platforms, so many new devices and such a volume of content to be distributed that anything other than automated workflows simply isn't sustainable for a content business of any significance. This shift, once seen by some as something of an expensive luxury, is now seen as a matter of pure survival, and will involve really hard commercial and business change. I also expect those who have made the change to start making much more aggressive use of the management information that proper automation brings to squeeze every ounce of efficiency out of their processes in the name of cost and efficient customer service.

As an adjunct to the last few points, I think we're going to see life getting even tougher for content processing houses playout, media management and VoD prep is a difficult business to be in. Many of these supply chain businesses currently lag behind when it comes to workflow and technology, and not all of them are heading in the right direction quickly enough. Expect to see more mergers, takeovers, and some withdrawals from the market - there will be significant change in this sector in 2016. Having sounded a note of caution, I do however see som

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