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Production
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WHYY adopts automated solution for VOD service
Sep 19, 2007
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by James Careless
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WHYY, the PBS member station serving southeastern Pennsylvania, Delaware, and South New Jersey, is now distributing 10 of its top shows on Comcast’s Video on Demand service. And it’s having a rather easy time doing it.
Under the arrangement, WHYY repackages shows such as the nightly The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and other locally produced programs to meet the Cablelabs 2.0 VOD standard, then FTP these VOD data files directly to Comcast. All the cable TV company has to do is store these VOD packages on their servers; WHYY does the rest.
Fortunately, WHYY has discovered an automated VOD packaging solution that is fast and easy to use. Known as the QuickSilver Agility VOD Workstation, jointly made by Anystream and SeaChange International, this software platform can quickly render program elements into whatever common VOD format is required, with a minimum of human intervention.
Keeping It Simple
WHYY’s decision to use Agility came after extensive research into VOD technology. “Having been offered the chance to provide VOD by Comcast, we had to find a way to do it in-house that was relatively easy to execute and didn’t require specially-trained operators,” explained Bill Weber, WHYY’s CTO and vice president for content distribution. “After looking around, we discovered that ready-to-use VOD solutions were few and far between. But the exception was the QuickSilver Agility platform. Using software developed by Anystream, Agilty makes it easy not just to format content into VOD-ready files, but does so in a way that can be managed inside master control without requiring extensive training.
Originally, SeaChange International sold Agility as a software/hardware package. “However, Agility’s relatively minimal hardware demands, combined with the sophistication of our clients’ own existing workstations, made it unnecessary for us to sell them equipment,” recalled Tab Butler, SeaChange’s director of broadcast sales for the northeast region. “Specifically, Agility will run on a Windows Server 2003 platform, and only needs a Pentium 4 dual processor, 2 GB of memory, and 300 GB of hard drive space. Today, that’s almost a standard configuration for off-the-shelf PCs.”
Loaded with the VOD software, the Agility workstation sits between WHYY’s production systems and its Internet connection. To prepare the VOD package, “We simply drop the various elements into the Agility folder on the LAN,” said Weber. “This includes the actual program, any bumpers that top and tail the show, and the necessary show metadata. This last item is typed into a standardized template that goes into the package. It includes the show name, licensing period, run time, actors, and the program description for Comcast’s menu system.”
Once everything has been loaded into the folder, the Agility system handles the rest. “As soon as new content has been detected, Agility reformats to the necessary VOD format, then FTPs it to Comcast’s servers,” Weber noted. “They then ‘scrub’ the files to eliminate the chance of viruses, then store them on Comcast’s servers for access by their subscribers. It’s as simple as that.”
To say that Agility vastly simplifies the VOD production process is an understatement. Before it came along, the only way that WHYY could package content for VOD was to have an editor perform the tasks manually.
“Not only does Agility take this responsibility off our hands, but it’s drag-and-drop interface is easy for master control techs to intuitively understand,” Weber told GV. “As a result, we haven’t had to spend extra money training staff, let alone needing to designate someone extra to run our VOD operation.” Agility can even be set to automatically reformat HD content into either full-screen 4:3, or letterboxed video.
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| Agility's drag-and-drop interface makes it easy for WHYY master control technicians to prep program material for video-on-demand. |
Potential For Podcasting
One of the first broadcasters to grasp the possibilities of Web content distribution, PBS has established itself as a force in podcasting. “Since September 2005, PBS has regularly made it into the Top 100 Most Popular Podcast lists,” said CTO John McCoskey. “Today, there are about 70,000 podcasts available on iTunes. To date, our content has been downloaded over a million times.”
The Agility platform can reformat video for podcasting or streaming just as easily as it can for VOD. “It’s all a matter of which Agility template the system uses,” said Weber. “This means that we can produce VOD and podcasts of the same content virtually at the same time.”
WHYY’s success in producing VOD using Agility has allowed the station to keep Comcast subscribers happy. It has also allowed the station to help other regional PBS stations by producing VOD content on their behalf.
However, there are still challenges. “The biggest one isn’t technical,” noted McCoskey. “Rather, it is the ongoing negotiations with content producers to get permission to repurpose their material for VOD.”
Timeliness is the second challenge. “When people want to see NewsHour on demand, they don’t want one that is three days old. They want the most recent show,” Weber explained. “So we have to be prepared to turnaround such time-sensitive material as quickly as humanly possible. Otherwise, it loses its value.”
Speaking of value, WHYY doesn’t make any money from supplying VOD content to Comcast. “However, once VOD becomes popular, we may be able to sell VOD-only bumpers to our underwriters,” said Weber.
A third obstacle is server space. Comcast’s Philadelphia operation only has about 60 video servers capturing and storing content from local and network providers. As a result, VOD content has a short lifespan on its system. “Besides, they want to be VOD provider, not an archive,” Weber observed.
WHYY’s success in producing VOD is inspiring other PBS stations to take the plunge. On a larger scale, it’s providing the network with yet another option for becoming a true multimedia content provider, rather than just a TV network that happens to be on the Web.
“We live in a time where consumers have multiple sources for content, and the ability to timeshift and otherwise manipulate it to suit their desires,” said McCoskey. “Being able to use one system to produce VOD and podcast content helps us to keep up with those demands. It also keeps us at the forefront of change, which has helped PBS to hold its own in the expanding multi-channel universe.”
Back in the present, Weber is just glad that the Agility platform works as promised. “Producing VOD is now a part of our daily routine,” he said. “Thankfully, the Agility system allows us to do this with a minimum of resources and manpower. That’s important, because we really can’t afford to expend a lot of effort on VOD, but we cannot afford not to provide it, either. With Agility, we are able to meet Comcast’s needs, and thus get more mileage -– and more viewers -– for our programming.”
MORE INFO
Anystream anystream.com
SeaChange schange.com
WHYY whyy.org
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