A presentation by David Hornsby from ITV and Jon Folland from Nativ, discussing ITV's approach to content modernisation and media workflows.

1. Content Delivery Modernisation
A Media Logistics Approach
BVE 2015 - Broadcast Technology and Workflow
David Hornsby - Content Technology Lead

2. In August 2010, ITV announced its strategy to transform the business over five years
based on key priorities. In July 2014, renewed strategic priorities were announced,
these priorities are a natural evolution of the current strategy and focus the business
on the largest areas of potential growth
Content and its distribution is key to the success of ITV’s strategic priorities

3. 2010
Linear Broadcast - 100% Tape Based
Asset Management - No file capability, only tapes
Media Workflow - No capability, only tracking
Transcode - No long form capability
Volumes - 5 Linear Channels, 4 Catchup Partners taking <20 Hours per week

4. Why Modernise
Distributed workflows
Lack of Visibility
Growth

5. 2015
Linear Broadcast - >90% File based
Asset Management - MAM housing >18,000 DPP based file records
Media Workflow - Automated linear and non-linear workflows, order to fulfilment
Transcode - 2 Transcode farms, outputting up to 2000 files a day
Volumes - 7 Linear Channels, 30 Catchup & Archive Partners taking 300 hours of
content a week

6. Small Steps...
By early 2012 we’d built simple ‘off the shelf’ systems that utilised our existing
storage and networks and were capable of processing low volumes of content for
linear and non-linear platforms.
In order for ITV to reach its vision and be ready for fully file-based future workflows
across all content we started thinking about handling much larger volumes and
many more distribution channels

7. Content Delivery Modernisation
● Established products (v4,5,6)
● Depth in core strength, but also breadth
● APIs
● Domain specific Microservices connecting
everything
Transcoding
Logic
Workflow
Orchestration
Asset Management
Microservices
June 2013
Within a 6 week POC we’d proven we
could get these systems working
together through microservices to
process content

8. Content Delivery Modernisation
Scheduling Rights
VOD Selection/Tracking
Vidispine
MIO Everywhere
VantageStorage
ITV Microservices and
RabbitMQ Messaging
Content
Preparation
Transmission
Online Platforms and
Partners
DPP Files
WOs

9. Content Delivery Modernisation
4 Workflows carry out tasks required by ITV to raise,
requests with our partners and deliver content under
automation
● Handle Workflow
o A pre-processing workflow that determines which type of workflow
needs to process the incoming request
● Content Acquisition Workflow
o A workflow that raises requests to our content preparation partners
● Update Workflow
o A workflow that updates information when required
● Partner Delivery Workflow
o A workflow that processes and delivers content

10. Content Delivery Modernisation
All Deliveries, linear or non-linear have the same ‘Partner Delivery’
workflow and are tracked in the same way

11. Partner Delivery Workflow
Whether content is destined for an iPhone or an
International Broadcast it’s prepared the same way
● Extract key information from incoming request; Production ID,
Required by Date, Partner Name
● Check MAM for existing transcodes/output
● Check MAM for source content
● Check if content has already been requested
● Raise Content Acquisition Workorder
● Wait for content to arrive, sleep.
When content arrives….
● Check key information, AFD, Format
● Call for partner profile details
● Call for partner EDL
● Call for partner transcode
● Import transcodes

12. What we’d learnt from our POCs and wanted to continue
Users are key, involve them, real ones.
Buy what you can, build what you can’t
There’s no problem thinking big,
but be prepared to start small!
Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3

13. Pain Points - Reflection
Distributed workflows
Lack of Visibility
Growth
● All assets made visible at the desktop via MAM
● All workflows mapped in an easy to read workflow, stating
progress and failures
● Updates taken from points in the workflow and displayed in
existing tools
● Infrastructure issues flagged to relevant technical support staff
within seconds
● All workflows (linear and non-linear) fed from single DPP files
● All workflows run from standardised (partner delivery) workflows
● All metadata input using DPP Schema (with some additional fields)
● Changes limited to as few systems as possible
● All specific partner logic externalised

14. Questions?