How it works
BLM production software services are deployed at the customer facility – these provide for Flexicart (BLM Flexicart Service) controlled batch ingest of the tape based assets (BLM Ingest Service), metadata enrichment (BLM Miura Production) as well as the fulfilment capabilities of tape layback (BLM Layback Service) and lossless file based derivation and delivery (BLM Tailor Service).
Overview
The Cloud on the Ground is a new service provision and pricing plan from Blue Lucy Media that will transform current business models for time to market, return on investment and CAPEX spend – for the better! The cloud on the ground is a cloud hybrid model in which the benefits afforded by cloud based services – namely pay-as-you-go charging and boundless collaborative capability – are delivered by a mixture of hosted and deployed software.
Cloud provisioned services for broadcast production and processing operations haven’t grown in the way many analysts forecast. Certainly the industry is not reaping the benefits seen in other sectors, such as design or publishing. The collaborative capability afforded by cloud based services fit well with the business of production and equally the cloud is an ideal and low cost ‘shop’ through which finished program content may be syndicated. So what’s missing?
Compared to a graphic or magazine copy, production assets (videos) are huge and the cost of transporting these to and storing them in the cloud as well as then delivering them doesn’t stack up economically – the bandwidth and storage costs greatly outweigh the benefits. Further the intangibility of the cloud is an unquantifiable risk: are valuable rushes or archive content secure from theft and malicious or accidental deletion? For many the preference is that the master essence is firmly stored in the broadcast / production facility.
The BLM Cloud on the Ground is a hybrid that affords the best of both models providing the security of deployed software processing tools, the collaborative working capability of the cloud and the combined capability to monetise the content.
Benefits of using the Cloud on the Ground
Tapes are batch ingested at your production facility; the master assets are stored on locally deployed storage and a watermarked browse version is pushed to the secure BLM cloud, “Video Nimbus”. Using the cloud stored browse content and the hosted Blue Lucy Asset Manager (BLAM) archivists may enrichen the assets’ catalogue metadata and manage the editing and packaging of the content ready for web-based syndication. The packaged material is then made available through our white-label web portal. Through the web interface customers may search the asset management system for content and the resulting order – which contains an EDL of the required clips, the required sections of the those clips and the preferred delivery mechanism – is posted back to the facility for processing.
The collaborative and lightweight functions take place in the cloud and the heavy lifting video processing of linear ingest, file cut & splice and layback, takes place on the ground at the broadcast facility.
Naturally the usage of the cloud is billable on a pay-per-use-basis but there is no ‘bill shock’ for storage or bandwidth since the use is limited to lightweight storage of browse essence and metadata. Software deployed at the facility for ‘heavy lifting’ functions is also billed only on the basis of usage, so costs may be tightly controlled and predictable.
