feed and trigger an alert if trouble
occurs. If an external system reports
any device is down, whether currently
involved in a feed or not, this equipment is immediately and automatically marked as out of service in the
core system without requiring any
human interaction. This prevents
doomed feeds from being scheduled
in the chaotic environment where no
one has noticed or been able to manually update the system. Equipment is
automatically returned to operational
status upon message from the external system.
Managing live feeds
On game days, broadcasters must
extend transmission feeds in unison
to contend with variants like weather
and overtime or injury time. These
affect everything in the sky and on
the ground, from the uplink trucks,
satellite channels and teleports; to
the fiber network; to the staff and
freelance personnel crewing the
event. An ERM system allows these
changes to be executed into a single
booking of record, which in turn will
automatically pass the information
to downstream systems to facilitate
Teleport
Uplink
Fiber
network
Planning
Find resources
Scheduling
Payroll
migrated most of the crewing to local
freelancers. Without an integrated solution, the complex task of manually
reconciling payroll for 1000 freelancers with all of the scheduling modifications that occur during the event
would be enormous.
Throughout each event, hundreds
of feeds will be processed and delivered
to air, and managing inbound and outbound feeds becomes mission-critical.
Broadcasters that rely on a manual
process for managing and scheduling feeds are at risk for double entries,
inaccuracies and redundant tasks, all
leading to reduced efficiency and lost
revenue, time and reputation.
A simple scheduling change can
have a cascading effect that requires
engineers to shuffle the routers and
lines bringing the feed into the Technical Operations Center (TOC) for
the given venue. Each venue then
routes to the International Broadcast Center ( IBC), fanning out into
an even more complex series of feeds
with unique video, language and
transport formats.
Regardless of where the many
streams flow, they emanate from a
single source, connected and interoperable. When the pebble of change
is thrown in — be it weather delay,
overtime or equipment failure — the
result is not a wave of chaos. Rather,
it is a smooth ripple of information
flowing outward from the central
booking, the central system, to all
other involved systems.
This ease of execution frees up operators to concentrate on other elements of the broadcast, and in turn
reduces the number of operators
needed. ERM software allows one operator to do the job of two or three because of the vast reach and control he
or she has across the operation from a
single consolidated action rather than
a flurry of individual actions.
the extended on-air coverage.
An ERM system will also update the
crew schedules and report the extra
time worked to the payroll system — a
crucial capability for cost control, time
keeping and reconciliation. This is an
An ERM system
will update the
crew schedules and
report the extra
time worked in the
payroll system — a
crucial capability
for cost control,
time keeping and
reconciliation.
extremely valuable function for accurate, as-you-go time-keeping; efficient
reconciliation; and detailed financial and production reporting. In the
past few years, to maximize returns,
broadcasters of these large events have
Events
People Equipment Facilities
Broadcast
ERM
Execution and
interoperability
Reconciliation
Post-analysis
Reporting
MAM
Ingest
DAM
Playout
QC
Figure 1. Shown here is an automated workflow driven by ERM software.
After the event
Once the event is a wrap and all
the feeds, facilities and freelancers are
‘goodnighted,’ it is not only time for
a celebration of success but also time
