Strong Reasons to Consider Broadcast Automation
Automation is part and parcel of today’s world. You get it in your car in the form of automatic gear shifts, headlights, electric windows or wipers. You get it also in your house in the form of lights that turn on when you return home at dark. Automation has today made life so much easy by easing actions and workflows. but have you made it a part of your broadcast production?
Broadcast automation is not necessarily for the big shots. You can benefit from automating more than you expect. Here’s how and who can do that.
Several automation processes are quite basic but super effective such as a sensor that switches on the lights after dark and when it senses movement. The same is applicable to a number of processes within the broadcasting industry. The main process is to link software and hardware together and collect the info needed to develop automated processes.
For example, you could begin with a small part of your production like the playout in your control room. Subsequently, a tool could permit a clip to be cued and begun on your playout software while at the same time triggering the vision mixer to transition to the clip with the appropriate wipe. In order to cut to the next item, the tool could trigger the vision mixer again when the clip has finished playing.
However, you should consider a great change: automating the entire process in one go! It might be a big shift, but believe it, it can be done!
What is Automation when it Comes to TV Production and Broadcasting?
Automation Processes in Newsrooms
An example where automation is already being applied is in the newsroom of high-end broadcasters, such as Sky News, CNN and BBC.
There are often very complex shows, that contain several different story elements like local and remote sources, graphics, video playout in several forms, camera movements, audio segments and a lot of layering and effects going on in the video switcher. They all need to play along nicely and work at the correct moment.
This can be managed manually and, in that case, the director has to work like an orchestra conductor. They could be standing in the center of the control room, giving cues and directions to all operators in there. We have seen control rooms with 18 operators being directed that way. Obviously, this can give rise to many human errors.
However, by automating these shows, staff can put out a perfect-looking newscast every single broadcast with a much smaller team.
Automation Processes in Talk shows, Gameshows and Entertainment
One more example of complicated shows is gameshows. What happens when a contestant gives a correct or wrong answer? Which audio and video elements should be played? What happens to the scoring system and graphics? The list of questions for the production and entertainment shows is endless.
In spite of the complexity of such shows, even currently, these shows are only partially automated. Only the graphical elements or scoring system are automated, but the entire show still remains a creation of a lot of manual input that is bound to make mistakes.
To Simplify Workflow
Why Should Production Teams Automate as Much as Possible?
Automating can make the entire workflow smoother.
To Reduce Errors and Stress
Automating shows makes your life easier and decreases stress in the control room. Will the operator play the right clip? Will they show the right graphic without typos? Will there be accurate countdown to the end of that clip? What will happen at the end of the clip? Automating can make sure everything goes as planned, with less errors and stress.
For Improved Overview
Automating your content creation process and your control room will decrease manual input and give people working on your show a much larger overview. It allows a centralized and real-time collaboration through a cloud-based platform.
For Speed
Beyond the above topics, another strong reason to consider broadcast automation is speed.
When errors are eliminated, a lot of repetitive human input is no longer required, the end-to-end process naturally gets a speed bump. Due to this, your production runs smoother, beginning from writing and brainstorming, over shooting and editing towards the control room where you record and broadcast your show.
Cost-effective
The cost of content creation is the primary concern. Hiring talented people and their time costs money and the time spent in editing rooms and the studio needs a big budget as well.
Nevertheless, automation can optimize the way people and equipment work. Wouldn’t it be great if you could produce the same shows for less money or in less time?
Automation is certainly a great tool and an inevitable part of the future of broadcasting. However, humans will still be the creative brains behind producing great content with this new technology. So, one need not worry about technology taking place of humans. Automation will just ease out people’s life and won’t throw them out of business!