Use Cases

Here are a few brief examples of how the Miura toolset is in use with broadcast and media companies. Please see the documentation section for more detailed use cases.

ITV - Regional Ingest for Transmission, Catch-Up TV and Archive.

ITV are using multiple channels of Miura Ingest as part of their Content Store II implementation and to quickly get content from the ITV regional studios to Technicolor for play out, as well as for the ITV Catch Up service.

Instances of Miura Ingest are located at a number of ITV regional centres including Manchester, Leeds and The London Studios (TLS) on the Southbank. The function of Miura Ingest is to digitise content - typically late edits or compliance changes to scheduled programming - to allow the content to be transfered in the file domain. A previous workflow was to use a vision circuit or the overnight tape van for this type of contribution.

As part of the ingest set up the appropriate metadata capture template is loaded according to the delivery channel, or channels. This allows the users to enter the content metadata just once for multiple delivery destinations.

Following the ingest, which for SD content is IMX50 with multichannel audio, the file content and appropriate metadata XML is published for collection and onward distribution over the Aspera Content Deliver Network which utilises the existing MPLS network.

On 'arrival' the content is automatically imported to the content management system (of which there are three) using the XML metadata created by Miura Ingest.

Further integration work is currently being scoped to further streamline the operation, although the current implementation is already providing huge operational and cost savings to ITV.

DGP - Bulk Ingest

DGP Post Production located in the heart of London's Soho was established in 1995 and is now recognised as one of the top twenty facilities in the UK. Miura Ingest is utilised for high quality bulk content digitisation to MPEG-1 & MPEG-2 largely from DigiBeta tape.

BT Heritage - archive content ingest

BT Archives www.bt.com/archives part of BT Heritage and located at Holborn Telephone Exchange in London preserves the historical information of British Telecommunications plc and its predecessors from the early part of the nineteenth century up to the present day; effectively the history of telecommunications services in the United Kingdom and from the UK to overseas.

Increasingly their unique collections are becoming more accessible online. Under development and due for launch in the near future is their new online film gallery which will offer access to video footage previously only available on a number of different, primarily analogue, tape formats.

Content will include advertising and promotional campaigns, training and recruitment programmes and some of the most interesting and memorable communications events in the 20th century.

BLM have supplied a built Miura Ingest system based on an HP hardware. Miura Ingest is used to 'digitise' the BT Archive content for publication on the film gallery and subsequent file based distribution.

The introduction of Miura simplifies what was a tortuous ingest process and allows BT Heritage to create watermarked low resolution browse quality clips concurrently with the full resolution master for publication on the public facing website.

Further, a custom metadata capture template within the Miura UI has been created which allows the ingest operator to capture all pertinent data about the content whilst building the ingest schedule. This metadata is exported from Miura as XML which then automatically updates the content repository database.

This deployment is an embodiment of the target application of Miura Ingest at inception: a simplified, easy to use and low cost tool for the bulk multi-format ingest of tape based archive content with tight integration with the asset management system.

Omreop Flevoland - Ingest for Archive.

The Dutch regional broadcaster Omroep Flevoland (OF) have a multichannel deployment of Miura Ingest as part of their Digital Archive project.

Launched in 1997, Omroep Flevoland (OF) is now an €8m/year business, disseminating news and information to the Dutch province of Flevoland over television, radio, web, teletext, text TV and other channels. In their tape archive OF has built up approximately 3,000 hours of tape footage. The process for retrieving this valuable local content was proving both time-consuming and expensive, and concerns were growing about the tapes deteriorating over time.

The decision was therefore made to execute a Digital Archive project - ingesting from tape into file format and storing on IT servers, adding metadata and making it available over the network to all operational staff. The object was set that the ingesting and cataloguing process should not interfere or load the existing news production operation, and should seamlessly integrate with the existing Evoxe NIS4 newsroom computer system that provides the central media asset management workflows for the whole station.

Since the beginning of February 2010, OF has had a 4-person team focussed on archiving, successfully using the Miura Ingest software fully integrated with the Evoxe NIS4 newsroom computer system.

The NIS4 system sends an XML ingest manifest to the Miura Ingest software, complete with time-code positions and metadata. The ingest operator loads the appropriate tape into a VTR, selects which clips to ingest from the manifest, then previews each clip, frame accurately controlling the tapes in the VTR using jog and shuttle controls from the Miura desktop or external hard panel. In/out points are modified as required and when ready the ingest of one or more clips is started at a click of a button.

Miura creates a high quality high resolution file, a low resolution browse copy and an XML file for the metadata, all with assignable delivery paths on a network share for NIS4 to access. Miura writes an XML file at the beginning of each ingest to inform the NIS4 system ingest has started, allowing OF operators to add metadata in their NIS assets video cards while ingest is in progress. On completion of ingest a second XML is written containing the final file metadata, such as the file technical data.

Loft London - Bulk Ingest Capability

Loft London www.loftlondon.co.uk a leading FACT accredited, duplication, ingest and transcoding media boutique have a multi-channel deployment of Miura Ingest at their South London facility. Loft offer one of the most competitive rate cards in London for media services including content ingest. The Miura deployment has allowed Loft to rapidly and inexpensively increase ingest capacity, as the requirements of customers such as Chello Media, Jetix and Red Bee Media evolve.