Signiant Delivers File-Based Workflow for Norwegian National Broadcaster

Signiant announced that Norway’s national broadcaster, NRK, has launched an innovative file-based workflow solution for publishing field and user-generated content with superior speed and automation across all of NRK’s broadcast and Web outlets. Combining the strengths of Signiant’s accelerated Managers+Agents, Media Exchange, and Media Shuttle software, the application known as TIPS leverages an innovative broadcast automation platform built for NRK by local integrator Mediateket to expedite remote coverage of last summer’s London Olympics.

As the broadcast networks continue to seek new, more efficient ways to tackle the massive volumes of valuable content being generated by social sharing and mobile devices, NRK’s advanced broadcast automation platform and TIPS application for handling user-generated video, audio and text demonstrate how Signiant’s software is helping broadcasters and other media service providers to deliver a step-change in process efficiency.

With TIPS a producer or journalist can define how, where and when user-generated news content best fits into their operations – and with a press of a button, use Signiant’s accelerated file transfer software to move content through a process where it is metatagged, transcoded if needed, and sent to downstream destinations, including a Media Asset Management (MAM) system for archiving.  For example, a :20 second video clip of a fire might be routed to breaking TV news, a package news feature for later airing, and the Web. All content is documented and tracked, making it easier for journalists to annotate story packages and find user content for other stories.

“Signiant helped us to create one of the most advanced automated news workflows in the world, where we avoid time-consuming repetitive tasks, expedite content movement and give our staff the tools to use the wealth of user- sourced content to create engaging news packages across all our media properties,” says Rune Hagberg, solutions architect at NRK.  “During the Olympics, Signiant’s solution proved its power for greatly accelerating content delivery, and now that we are integrating it with a host of mission-critical broadcast systems, it has become a vital part of our operations infrastructure.”

Signiant’s Managers+Agents software includes powerful file-based workflow modeling and administration features that are designed to orchestrate the time-consuming tasks of preparing material for distribution and playout, including ingest, quality screening, virus scan, update scheduling, transcoding and MAM archiving. Signiant allows media organizations to exchange content and metadata files with other users, systems and applications regardless of geographic location or file size. Agents installed on the sending and receiving ends manage and track content movement centrally to certify delivery.

“File-based workflows present tremendous opportunities for efficiencies, but as we know many gaps remain in the workflow, particularly with user-generated content coming to broadcasters in so many different formats,” said David Nortier, general manager, Signiant EMEA. “TIPS is only one of many initiatives at NRK where Signiant’s software has made it faster and easier for journalists to upload and assemble stories and reuse content across NRK’s diverse operations. We are delighted to support their vision for the broadcast automation platform of the future, and look forward to helping NRK derive even greater benefit from their investment in our products.”