Media Management Commission Seminar 2017 in Lugano. Day 1 - presentation 6

1. TV PRODUCTION - DIGITAL BROADCASTING SOLUTIONS
From a Video Archive to a Near-live Media
Distribution Platform
FIAT - IFTA Lugano - June 2017

2. Agenda
• Context
• Legacy - the project
• Future plans
• Conclusion
• Questions

3. Context

4. UEFA
• The Union of European Football Associations
• Governing body of European football
• Umbrella organisation for 55 national football
associations across Europe
• Organises 17 different competitions
• Sells media and sponsorship rights
• Based in Nyon, Switzerland

5. Digital Broadcasting Services Overview
• 90+ different services
• 550+ matches covered per year (live and/or near live)
• 1,000+ match live streams, 60,000+ video clips, 5,000+
data feeds​ per year
• 11,000+ TV and digital graphics​ per year
• 300+ broadcast and commercial partners
• 550+ UEFA internals/externals, football family members
(NAs, clubs etc.)
• 200+ production partners
• Through our current distribution
services Livex/Legacy
or via direct delivery to third party platforms

6. Stakeholders
Broadcasters Sponsors
UEFA
Internal
National
Associations
Clubs
Refereeing
& Coaching
Production
Partners
Agencies

7. Two Distinct Content Delivery Platforms
Livex
• Near live content distribution solution
– Match video clips
– Selected additional programming
– Data feeds
– Statistics
– Graphics
– Live video streams
• Digital & broadcast quality
• Broadcasters, sponsors, NAs, clubs, UEFA
Legacy
• Long term video archive
– All televised matches
– All additional programming
• Best possible quality with option to order in
lower qualities
• Selected broadcasters, sponsors, UEFA,
production partners

8. Legacy – UEFA Video Archive

9. Legacy – UEFA Video Archive
• Multi-year project launched in 2008
• Aim to preserve the UEFA video archive
• Official match data and time-based logging
• Creation of a web-based portal
• Streamlined ordering and delivery
• Major focus on user experience
• Three major phases:
PHASE 1
Digitisation of matches
First archive application
2008-2011
PHASE 3
Infrastructure update &
front-end redesign
2013-2015
PHASE 2
Automated ingestion
workflows
2011-2013

10. Archive Digitisation And Logging
• 2-year process
• Workflow at a glance:
UEFA tape archives
(4 Locations)
• In Switzerland & the UK
• More than 30,000 tapes
Digitising & logging
(Brussels)
• 10,000+ hours digitised
• 1,800,000+ events logged
• Approx. 400 events per match
• 27 full-time loggers
Archiving & hosting
(Geneva)
• Matches from 1956 to 2011
• 4,000+ matches
• Video files stored in best quality
possible
• Database containing video
related metadata & logs
PHASE 1
Digitisation of
matches

11. Archive Application
• First version launched in Summer 2011
• Web-based, developed in Flash
• Limited user group initially, gradually rolled out to UEFA staff during 2012
• Innovative video timeline
– Football match specific timeline
– Integration of video, object metadata and time-based logging
– Easy access to related content
PHASE 1
Digitisation of
matches

12. PHASE 2
Automated
ingestion
workflows
Stadium
(All televised matches)
• HB truck
• World feed creation
• Satellite up-link
d
Video acquisition,
transcoding & live
logging
(Turin)
• Creation of video files
• HD Format (XDCam50)
• Live logging (approx. 100 key
events per match)
Archive ingestion
(Geneva)
• Video files
• Video metadata from XML
• Generic information & logs
Automatic Matchnight Workflow
• All televised matches to be available by 9am the following day
• Initial video quality was MPEG-2 8Mbps, improved to XDCamHD 50Mbps

13. PHASE 3
Infra and front-
end redesign
Front-end & Storage Redesign
• Front-end completely rewritten in HTML5
– Advanced video functionality
– New features based on user feedback, including clip sharing and
screengrabs
– Integration of new content types (multi-angle video clips)
• Restructuring of storage infrastructure:
– Originally a single SAN of 800TB
– Changed to a SAN of 300TB plus an LTO robot
– Content storage location defined based on usage data

14. Application
• Capping mechanism
• More rights
management
• Search improvement
• Responsive design
• Skinning for various
target populations
PHASE 3
Infra and front-
end redesign
• Match metadata
• Log and keyword filter
• Match timeline
• Related video
• Video scrubbing capability
• Clip, rough edit, order and
share capability

15. Legacy Overview – Today 1/2
• Archive of more than 27,000 hours, more than 3 million logged
events
• Matches, highlights, interviews, press conferences, magazine
shows, promos…
• Multiple master file formats
• Data storage of more than 1PB, 650+ user accounts, 100,000
clips delivered per year in 8 possible different formats
• 80TB of content delivered per year, 70% of delivered content is
broadcast quality
• New applications developed on top of the archive
• Strong authorisation matrix

16. Legacy overview – today 2/2
• 5 major technical partners:
– EVS: Content management &
ingest/delivery infrastructure
– Interoute: Data centre
– UI Centric: Front-end
– Aspera: Content delivery
– EBU: Content delivery
• 3 major content providers:
– Deltatre
– IMG
– ISG

17. Future Plans

18. Tomorrow…
• Legacy & Livex should merge into a single platform
• Wider user base – 1,000+
• Ability to archive 4K content
• Ability to archive 360° content
• Improved workflows for remote content contribution
• More content – not only video
• Live, near live and post production usage
• More applications and usages addressed
• AI and machine learning

19. Digital Hive… New Project Code Name
Digital Hive
Content
Acquisition
Content
Factory
Content
Publication
Content
Distribution
QC, Monitoring and Reporting
Structure
• 4+1 independent pillars
• Breaking the 1-to-1 workflow/service
situation
• Clear segmentation between content
production and services
Benefits
• Centralised UEFA control
• Harmonise & re-purpose content
offering for all stakeholders
• Faster delivery of products and services
for all stakeholders
• More cost-efficient, scalable, agile
engine across all competitions
Third Party
Platform

20. Production Teams
UEFA
Production partners
Digital Hive – Route to Remote and Centralised Production
Digital Hive
UBPs Sponsor
Venue
Venue
Venue
CONTENT ACQUISITION
UEFA contribution network
0, 10Mbps, 100Mbps, 1Gbps, 10Gbps
NA Clubs
UEFA
Production
Partners
CONTENT DELIVERY
UEFA
distribution network
CONTENT ENRICHMENT
UEFA production network
1Gbps

21. Supporting More Clients - Centralisation Of Services With Decentralised
Platforms
Hive services in
the cloudCurrent
centralised
platforms
Meyrin (Interoute)
HiRes and
Archive
Hive
HiRes delivery
Accessing the Hive
Digital delivery
HiRes ordering
Moving to a scalable and cost
efficient architecture

22. Conclusion

23. Conclusion
From our experience…
• Archiving:
– Must be fully integrated with production workflows
– Pre-event planning is needed
– Metadata gathered and maintained through the whole process
• Infrastructure:
– Scale gradually
– Protect the platform – impose controls as needed
• User experience:
– Most of our users have little or no TV production experience
– Intuitive interface is vital

24. Questions?

25. Thank you/Merci/Grazie