In Broadcast - February 2016 - 46


46

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 6 - Issue 2 | February 2016

InMedia

OTT - The Future Is Cloudy
while Netflix is spending $6 billion
on programming, and will produce 600
hours of original content in 2016 alone.
For broadcasters looking to leverage
their heritage into OTT and TV
Everywhere this arms race presents a
problem. Norway's NRK, for example,
has stated that it has tripled its
content consumption since launching
multiscreen TV.
There is also the increasing problem
of getting to the consumer as the
tripartite battle for the living room
starts to zero in on whose box occupies
the coveted HDMI-1 slot.
Lack of decent UI development has
left smart TVs themselves rather
dumb, with many consumers deciding
to instead cue up OTT services via
a streaming device. This effectively
makes them a gate-keeper to the
rest of the entertainment services on

offer - not to mention an increasing
amount of Internet of Things devices if
feedback from CES is anything to go by
- and has the rather unfortunate byproduct of relegating television to just
another app on a screen somewhere,
jostling for attention amongst the
games, social media channels and
more.
Key Services
Broadcasters are fighting back with
what they see as the erosion of their
heartlands, however. The UK's Sky
has taken the wrappers off Sky Q, a
fearsomely capable new STB that fuses
broadcast television and the Internet
together, and fulfils the entire promise
of TV Everywhere by providing its own
closed ecosystem. Users will be able to
watch shows from the box anywhere
around the home; pause viewing on

Sky's potentially
game-changing new UHD-ready STB, Sky Q

cont'd...

one TV screen and pick it
up on another; carry their
content round with them on
a tablet; and watch different
programmes on up to five
screens simultaneously in the
house, while also recording
four other channels.
But it is also becoming
intuiTV
far easier for broadcasters Nagra's
is one of the new
to launch their own TV cloud-based TV services
Everywhere services, with
companies such as Kaltura, Nagra, to be crucial over the next few years.
Ooyala, and Viaccess-Orca (VO) With OTT providers exhibiting churn
launching
managed
cloud-based rates up in the 10% region, consumer
platforms that can be configured with loyalties can be considered to be
varying line-ups of in-demand services negotiable as best. In another of its
from live TV to VOD, SVOD, DVR and reports on the future of broadcast
social TV.
TV, accenture stated that service
VO's Voyage TV (TV as a service) has become a key differentiator, and
illustrates well the sort of service that "broadcasters need to develop a
that is available, the company stating multitude of heavily tailored offerings
that all operators have to do is pretty to meet customers' needs and their
much upload their content following willingness to pay".
which all the grunt work will be done
And to paraphrase the old saying
in the cloud. Everything can then be slightly, how they compete with the
managed from a single console, all likes of Netflix and Amazon over the
of which makes it extremely quick to coming handful of years is almost
launch new services.
literally the Six Billion Dollar (a year)
This, you get the feeling is going question.

PreRoll Post For
Windows Ships

I

magine Products has released
PreRoll Post for Windows.
PreRoll Post now allows Windows
users to create non-proprietary
backups of any file or folder using the
open-source Linear Tape File System
(LTFS).
The archiving application streamlines
the process of placing any file types
onto an LTO-7, LTO-6, or LTO-5 tape, or
onto Sony's ODA.
"Most people keep 'archives' on
hard drives, which become less and
less reliable the longer they sit on
the shelf. PreRoll Post mitigates that
problem by ensuring you can back up
full-resolution media to local disk and
to a long-term tape or cartridge in an
easy and almost foolproof
way, so archives are made
correctly the first time,"
said Michelle Maddox,
Marketing
Director
at
Imagine Products.
"PreRoll Post for Windows

is really a one-of-a-kind product for
its price point. Anything comparable
for Windows would cost thousands
of dollars, versus just a few hundred
dollars for PreRoll Post. Even better,
it's compatible with our ShotPut
Pro application for Windows, which
has become the industry's de facto
standard for offloading."
PreRoll Post relies on checksum
technology to ensure the files on tape
exactly match the originals. By storing
the checksum values for each file,
PreRoll Post also verifies files during
restoration back to hard disk whenever
they're retrieved. This process
provides confidence that all copies of
files match the originals.
Within the PreRoll Post
application,
the
LTFS
mounts a tape as a volume
(like a hard disk) within
Explorer, making it possible
to write to and read from
the tape as if it were a disk,

without other proprietary software or
formatting.
PreRoll Post also makes it easy to
search for and retrieve previously
backed-up
files.
Drag-and-drop
functionality for both archiving and
retrieval allows users to drill down
into folders on mounted or unmounted
tapes/cartridges to locate the files or
folders they seek.
Users can then simply insert that
tape or cartridge and pull what they
need.
For content creators or post houses
that create LTO deliverables for
Discovery Channel, PreRoll Post offers
a Discovery Channel mode to ensure

PreRoll Post for Windows main archive

the LTO tapes meet the network's
specifications for field, graphics, or
programme masters.
In this mode, PreRoll Post
automatically places files in the
proper locations on the tape to meet
Discovery Channel specs.
PreRoll
Post
is
hardwareindependent, meaning that it is
compatible with any LTFS-compliant
tape drive, including MagStor, mTape,
UNITEX LT60 with USB 3.0, 1Beyond, or
any desktop-connected LTO drive, as
well as Sony's ODA.
PreRoll Post for Windows is available
for immediate download.
http://www.inbroadcast.com https://dtv.nagra.com/ces http://www.sky.com/skyq https://youtu.be/3gV4MFzpemc
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of In Broadcast - February 2016
