OSCON 2010 Brendan Quinn - Ingex:bringing open source to the broadcast industry 2010-07-21

Ingex: Bringing Open Source to the Broadcast industry
Brendan Quinn, Technology Transfer Executive
OSCON 2010

Outline…
Quick overview of the BBC
What is ingex, why is it useful
The search for a business model
Building a partner programme in this industry
Potential issues around open source licensing
What’s next

BBC Research & Development
The UK’s public broadcaster
Funded by a TV licence paid by every UK TV owner, plus income from commercial activities outside the UK
Income ~ £4 billion pa
R&D Labs
Pursuing research since 1924
150 engineers in London & Manchester
Create open standards with SMPTE, EBU, ITU etc
160 patents, 7 Queen’s Awards, 4 Emmys
~50 active technology licences

Audience Experience
BBC Research Portfolio
Work Area
Media Management
Distribution
Production
Teams
1. Production Magic
1. Audience Exp
2. Prototyping
1. Automated Prodn & Media Mgt
2. Archives
1. Core technologies
2. Network Layer
3. Application Layer
Project highlights
DVB-T2
Video compression
Revenue protection
HD radio cameras
Service innovation
TV over internet
Ingex tapeless production
Tech standards
Archive storage & retrieval
Canvas platform & UI
Accessibility
Metadata
Dual screens
3D content creation
3D graphics
On-air-effects
HD production tech
Ambisonics & periphony

We make cool things like…
Hand-held augmented reality
Keying without a blue screen
Pattern-based camera tracking
Real-time texture tracking

What is Ingex?
Tapeless capture and recording system
Runs on commodity hardware and software
Standard PC with capture card
Linux operating system
Modular: can integrate with
Metadata syncing (catalogue integration, barcode scanner etc)
Automatic metadata tagging (Photo-Sensitive Epilepsy detection, shot detection etc)
Tape deck control
and more…
Creates MXF files
open standard for video exchange
Studio, Archive and card-reader versions (in various states of readiness)

Ingex Archive
Ingests from SDI inputs
Tape deck control
D3 and DigiBeta support
Error channel input/storage
PAL transform decoder integration
Metadata catalogue integration using barcode scanner
QC integration
Ingex Player
DigiBeta dropout detection
Photo-Sensitive Epilepsy analysis
Output to LTO-3 tape:
uncompressed videowrapped in MXF OP-1A
h.264 browse format
Used in BBC Information & Archives since 2007
Users
BBC Information & Archives (since 2007)
Other UK and European archives trialling

Ingex Studio
Takes input directly from cameras
SD: Tested 4 simultaneous camera feeds
HD: Tested 3 simultaneous camera feeds
(only limited by CPU/disk)
Simultaneous recording of all sources
No re-shoots after bad camera changes
Creates MXF files (OP-Atom)
Enables “production logging”
marking good/bad takes, noting script directions
Stores all logging metadata inside MXF/AAF stream
Creates browse/online versions in real time
Used on programmes such as:
EastEnders
Dragon’s Den
HD Jazz Shorts
The Bottom Line
BamZOOKi

What we’re working on
Amore modular architecture
An “ecosystem” of components for tapeless video management
Support new hardware, system integrations
Enablepluginssuch as:
Automatic image detection
Face recognition, shot/scene detection
Object detection (boom mics, pictures, cars etc)
Metadata / workflow integration
Making the production process easier
Error detection/ correction (especially useful for archives)
Integration with other workflow tools, storage etc
Whatever else people can think of…

Benefits of Ingex
Much cheaper than multiple tape decks and professional video tape
Saves huge amounts of time ingesting tape for edit
Can create files for any edit system (Avid, FinalCut Pro etc)
Don’t need to use proprietary storage
Can utilise ever-cheaper hard drives etc
Can easily scale to multiple recorders
Can expand and add features as they are delivered
Increases quality of programmes

BBC Strategy for Ingex
To save the BBC money through making Ingex the preferred platform for ingesting content into tapeless workflows, using open standards and avoiding vendor lock-in
To ensure that we can continue to innovate upon the platform, enabling the BBC to realise the benefits of continued innovations from BBC R&D and from third-party providers
To give the benefits of the Ingex system to the broadcast and production community in the UK and around the world, driving down cost and enabling innovation through promoting open, standards-based media workflows

Long-term vision
Ingex as the “beach-head” for creating an IP-based studio suite
File-based production using commodity hardware
MPEG over IP rather than over SDI cables etc
From acquisition through editing to playout and archive, all IP & files
Forms the basis of a disruptive technology in broadcasting
Bring studio-quality tech to the hands of non-traditional producers:
Schools / universities
Very small production companies (YouTube publishers etc)
Companies outside broadcast industry
Internal/external training, conferences, promotions, …
To achieve this, we have to make Ingex a “platform” rather than just a product

Making it sustainable
We want the Ingex project to be self-sustaining
Integrate new features from developers inside and outside the BBC
Handle packaging, documentation, support
Let the researchers go and invent the next new thing
How to do that?
Appeal to volunteer developers
Difficult in this industry
Universities, community television?
Appeal to charitable donors
Anyone want to give us some money?
Do something that covers our costs
So we need some kind of business model…

The broadcast production “value chain”

The broadcast production “value chain”
Potential partners / customers

Open Source Business Models - 1

Open Source Business Models – 2
Also see “Business Model Generation” – Alexander Osterwalder
www.businessmodelgeneration.com

So which model(s) are we trying?

Support model: the Ingex “ecosystem”

Ingex Solutions
Controls / coordinates architecture and development work
Governed by Ingex Steering Group (partners and key customers)
Provides 3rd-level support to partners and customers
Provide internal support within the BBC
But only where an external supplier can’t meet the need
Manages partnership programme
Certifies new partners
Creates/commissions training and certification materials
Runs showcase website
Manages user community (forums etc)
Runs Ingex community events
Webcasts, phone/IRC/real-life meetings, conferences
For partners and customers

Building a partner scheme
If we want partners to work with us, they need to know what’s in it for them
Variety of potential partners:
Development partners
OEM partners
Embed Ingex in other systems
Wrap Ingex in hardware and sell it
Complementary product vendors
eg face recognition plugin
Hobbyist / hacker developers
Production companies
Technical (specialist interfaces)
Non-technical (just provide support to their customers)
Open source consultancies that want to branch out into broadcast industry

We can’t stop anyone from offering services as an integrator, hardware partner etc
But we can trademark a logo, and license use of the logo according to criteria
“Certified Ingex support partner”
“Certified Ingex hardware partner” etc
Means we have to work hard to build a brand and make it worthwhile for partners to sign up
Partners are sometimes uneducated in the ways of open source
Or even software-based systems generally…
(Many customers are uneducated as well, but that doesn’t matter as much for us)

Offers to partners
Early access to roadmap
Input to roadmap
Closer access to developers
Advanced (level 3) technical support
Marketing support (via our website, events, promotional material)
Licence to use partner logo
Requirements of partners
Adhere to hardware, software, business guidelines
Best practice partner schemes
Alfresco, SugarCRM

Licence propagation issues

Licence propagation…

GPL / LGPL overview – our options
“Deriving from” GPL means we have to GPL our project as well
It’s a fuzzy area, not really tested in court, so best to be conservative
We retain rights to our own code so we can re-licence if necessary
Within the constraints of other licences
We want to allow others to build on top of our systems, egface recognition software
Options:
We can ensure that we keep x264 optional, and the tool should work fine without it (usingonly pure LGPL components)
This means following LGPL compliance rulessuch as http://www.ffmpeg.org/legal.html, egdynamic-linking to ffmpeglibraries
Build a wrapper library to allow use of FFmpeg or other encoder libraries
Removes “derivative” status – maybe!
Keep it GPL, don’t work with people who don’t like it
Limits capabilities of our software

Choosing the right licence
Try to make the licence decision as early as possible
If you’re building on top of another system that is GPL or LGPL, you might not have much choice
But you should still make the decision carefully
Think about why you are releasing your code
“Open Source” is not necessarily “GPL”
Many commercial-friendly licences are available
Apache Licence, Mozilla MPL, BSD licence
Opensource.org lists them all including pros and cons
You could write your own (but please don’t!)
There’s usually a way to use a regular OS licence
Google VP8 codec example
People like http://www.softwarefreedom.org/ can help you to choose/manage

Patents
Are completely separate from questions about open source or not – they’re about the algorithms, not the implementations of them
Anyone who sells a box that contains patented code (eg h264 codecs) must adhere to patent rules
Mostly it’s easy to conform to the rules…
Simple payment per encoder/decoder pair
Patent holders group together in pools, eg MPEG LA
Often there are minimum limits which you don’t meet unless you sell a LOT of “devices”
… but you have to be careful
For example, MPEG LA doesn’t necessarily licence allof the patents you need for MPEG4

Osmosoft Pyramid rule
Unique to company – proprietary, internal
Unique to industry – buy from a proprietay vendor(which may in turn use open source)
Commodity – use open source
We’re breaking this model – are we pioneers or fools?!

The start of a full open source stack for video production
3D animation
Web editing, publishing, ad management
3D animation

The story continues…
Research version reaches 1.0.0 late July 2010 (ie next week)
Website (www.ingex.tv) launching at International Broadcasting Convention September 2010
Ingex Solutions team has started work on managing ongoing releases, documentation, installers etc
Working on internal BBC projects in both Archives and Studio deployments
Still looking for partners around the world…
Maybe you are interested?

Thanks
Questions, suggestions, feedback very welcome!
http://ingex.sourceforge.net/
http://www.ingex.tv/ (coming soon)
Brendan.Quinn@bbc.co.uk
Image credits:
Khalid Al Masoudhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/khalid-almasoud/2497604365/

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