Broadcasting calls the shots

Broadcasters routinely transit and store eye-watering volumes of data

For years, financial services companies have been regarded as enterprise computing’s chief innovators ­ they had deeper pockets and more clout than anyone else. But even before the current economic turmoil, there were signs of a change on the horizon. Today, thanks to the all-encompassing embrace of IP-based technology, the broadcast industry has become IT’s greatest trailblazer, introducing groundbreaking technologies that are seeping into the mainstream.

The broadcast industry has found itself at the centre of a technology whirlwind that has seen data transmission and storage grow to a hitherto unimaginable scale. And as all manner of organisations are unexpectedly finding themselves cast in the role of broadcaster, business leaders are starting to ponder the lessons they might learn from the sector.

At the eye of this storm is digital video. Chad Hurley, co-founder of YouTube, told delegates at last month’s MIPCOM media industry conference in Cannes that the impact of video on business will only get bigger. “People want solutions for searching, discovering, watching, and interacting with video,” he said. “The proliferation of content will continue exponentially. And as methods for uploading, aggregating, personalising and distributing digital content develop, content owners will find new business opportunities.”

That has profound implications for those involved in enterprise IT. The consequences of widespread use of video is apparent at the BBC. Today, it manages millions of hours of digital material that it needs to be able to store, search and retrieve. Its Digital Media Initiative (DMI) will see the broadcaster move to delivering content on demand, through whatever means the consumer chooses, whether that is via a television, the internet, or even over a mobile phone. It is one of the biggest technology programmes ever initiated at the organisation, says BBC chief information officer Keith Little.

While DMI may be in a league of its own in terms of scale, the challenges it has thrown up are likely to be familiar to an increasing number of enterprise IT leaders, Little says, especially in the areas of storage and data management.

“Media asset management storage is something that I am increasingly asked about by lots of corporations that find themselves having to deal with lots of rich media content,” says Little. “They ask us how they can deal with it, how we manage it, and what vendors they should go for.”

Little says he has been contacted by businesses of all sizes that are building up stocks of rich media content, and looking for ways to manage it intelligently. “There are many different types of firms asking us how they get their audio/video content to audiences, and that has increased over the past few years. Corporates are also having lots of conversations about how they should communicate internally,” he says.

For many organisations, their first experience of broadcasting is through the adoption of videoconferencing. And with vendors such as HP and Cisco offering high-end solutions that use life-size broadcasts, a multitude of high-definition video cameras and CD-quality audio, the network overhead is significant.

Alongside the use of high-end videoconferencing, enterprises are increasingly comfortable with creating their own video content for promotional purposes. Traditional video-editing tools, once solely the preserve of broadcasters, are now routinely in use in other firms.

“In the past, broadcast technology was typically bespoke,” says Little. “Now we have technology solutions and kit to do things that replace those bespoke production techniques and facilities. Look at Apple’s Final Cut ­ you can make an entire programme with that. Ten years ago that was absolutely unheard of. It is about how you get that multimedia content out to the audience.”