New tool helps broadcasters maximise assets, improve workflow and drive cost-efficiencies through quality managed media access and organised browse and search

Cambridge, UK, July 14, 2009

IPV, a global leader and largest independent supplier of low bit-rate, frame-accurate video technology to the broadcast and professional video sectors, today announced that it will launch its Teragator relational metadata aggregation and management engine at IBC 2009 Stand no. 8.B67 (RAI Amsterdam, 11-15 September 2009). This new powerful tool provides a platform to aggregate metadata sources and data mining services to identify and manage complex relational links between assets and provide a simple visually compelling graphical user interface to represent and interact with these links. In combination with IPV’s renowned low bit-rate video technology, users can browse through the contents of any or multiple libraries to identify related, more appropriate content, quickly and simply — driving improved workflow and cost-efficiencies in finding, retrieving and managing assets and associated metadata and maximising earnings from a media asset portfolio.

Historically metadata used to describe resources was once merely structural — file type, Timecode, reel number. With the advent of digital libraries and file-based workflows, metadata has become as important as the asset itself. Metadata that describes any single source may exist in multiple formats — plain text, an XML file or a relational database record, and be distributed across numerous physical locations and business systems. Teragator allows the user to aggregate these disparate elements — extracting the semantic content from the aggregation. Semantically enhanced data can then be accessed from a uniform view anywhere within an organisation, providing a paradigm for browsing such information and integrating workflows.

To this end, Teragator has huge implications for those businesses that rely on media assets to generate revenue, whether using a single library or those having operations with multiple databases and distributed assets. For instance broadcasters and content producers with large libraries — particularly in news and sport — may not be making the most efficient use of their assets simply because their current methods for exploring and researching clips are not powerful enough. With Teragator, IPV is unlocking the power of the library by encouraging users to browse, not simply search and do so simultaneously across multiple data sources.

Teragator sits on top of existing archive systems and can be used with any hierarchical storage system. Based on open industry standards, Teragator can be used to bring external content sources into the common platform with a uniform view for browse and search.

"Editorial staff, library sales and research assistants looking for library material to enrich or illustrate a story will search through the metadata for a given library, often using the same terms — and the result is that the same clips are offered and used," said David Cole, Chief Executive Officer at IPV. "Using Teragator to interact with the metadata and media assets enables users to truly capitalise on established libraries, delivering rapid results from these new digital workflows. Teragator offers a world of opportunity by uplifting catalogues, streamlining library and archive management and repurposing media."

The IPV solution provides three layers to uplift the value of the portfolio and any operation. It does this by aggregation and management of asset data within a new platform based on the emerging web industry standard RDF (resource description framework). This lets the library establish or maintain its own standardised vocabulary for descriptive metadata, which ensures that all the relationships between data can be represented, even when the archivist or users entering the metadata do so in multiple forms. This standardised vocabulary allows queries to be made on knowledge which can be gathered from other sources as well as from the entered metadata. The first layer therefore supports the capture and annotation of assets into dedicated and focused databases, often streamlined for specific uses.

In the middle layer, Teragator supports the librarian and content management functions for interacting with the library and data sources to embellish the media such as identifying sub-clips or adding annotation, and maintaining the existing data sets as well as linking new sources including live RSS (Really Simple Syndication) data feeds.

Finally retrieving content is fundamental to the value of the assets, hence the compelling and rewarding visual user interface of Teragator — in essence this third layer of the system will present the research results as a series of links on screen. These links might be between people, places, or historical and current events. The user can follow these links to browse through the contents of the library, leading to material which might not have been revealed by a conventional search.

IPV will be adding its Teragator product to its already widely-used browse solutions including the Curator system, a comprehensive, browse-based tapeless workflow media management system designed to allow communities of media professionals to add value and monetize assets and SpectreView, the de facto standard for production critical browse resolution systems that incorporates precision timecode and frame accuracy.

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