Video/Audio As Data?

Open Standards and Media Servers


Speakers:

  • Date & time: Wednesday, 26 Feb 2003
  • Meeting organizer: John Hartwell

    • Program:

    Data networks are changing the infrastructure of media production facilities, once seen merely as the physical interconnection of audio and video signals. The line between A/V and IT is blurring. The good news is, the transition increasingly allows real-time sharing and delivery of A/V material to multiple destinations for production and airing. The bad news is, a wide variety of platform standards can make sharing digits difficult. To make it all work, the industry must move to "open platform" hardware and software.

    Our speaker, Adam Wilt, Senior Engineer for Collaborative Production at Omneon Video Networks, will discuss this evolving architecture and the use of open platforms in Omneon's MediaServer system as one solution to the digital production traffic jam.

    Omneon builds scalable, multi-format video/audio servers based on industry open-platform standards. Adam says, "The nice thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from," and Omneon chooses quite a few: Fibre Channel, FireWire, and Gigabit Ethernet for connectivity; SMB and AFP for Windows and Macintosh network access; QuickTime for file formats; and more codecs than you can shake a stick at.

    In his discussion, Adam will talk about the benefits and pitfalls of this sort of open-standards approach, with early customer reactions, automation system interfaces, Pinnacle liquid interfaces, and MPEG transport stream browsers.

    Adam will conclude his talk with real-time demonstrations of true edit-in-place workflows using Apple Final Cut Pro (FCP) nonlinear editing systems (NLE). Attendees will see video and audio ingested by Omneon immediately made available to FCP NLEs without further file transfer or conversion. Editing can then proceed immediately. Because FCP is Quicktime-based, its output is immediately playable to air by the Omneon system. The company's use of standard interfaces and file formats allows this sort of workflow to occur with off-the-shelf NLEs not specifically designed for the purpose.

    Adam works on editing strategies and workflows, user interfaces, and utility tools at Omneon. He also works as a freelance film and video cameraman and editor, and as a systems engineering, product design, and production consultant. He maintains a website on DV and 24p technologies at http://www.adamwilt.com. He served as a SMPTE officer and designed and ran the A/V for several SMPTE national conferences.

    Welcome:
    SMPTEsf  welcomes members and friends to attend without charge. Reservations are not required for this meeting.

    Location:

    KCSM-TV
    College of San Mateo
    1700 W. Hillsdale Blvd. at SR-92
    San Mateo, CA 94402-3757
    easy access from both I-280 and US-101
    Parking - use lot 19 and print this link, place on dash board as a free parking permit
     



     

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