Dalet to roll out Galaxy MAM platform, release Xtend for Adobe CS6

Dalet Digital Media Systems will showcase Dalet Galaxy, the latest and most advanced version of the company’s enterprise Media Asset Management (MAM) platform. Dalet Galaxy includes a BPMN 2.0-compliant workflow engine that has been specially tailored to media workflows in order to improve productivity while adding operational and business visibility across the enterprise. Additional new features in Dalet Galaxy include Dalet One Cut, a multitrack video editing framework; a modern graphical user interface; more customizable data models; advanced tools for searching and indexing; increased interoperability with NLEs; and support for upcoming industry standards such as AS-02 and FIMS. Dalet Galaxy will become the foundation for the company’s enterprise MAM solutions, which include the purpose-built workgroup packages: Dalet Media Life for program prep and archiving, Dalet News Suite for news production and distribution, Dalet Sports Factory for live event and sports production, and Dalet Radio Suite for multiplatform news and music programming.

The new BPM workflow engine in Dalet Galaxy meets the specific workflow needs of broadcasters and media companies and makes all of the operational and business processes fully visible. Managers can see the workflow in total as well as at the granular level. They can monitor the internal progress of each workflow step and pinpoint the status of assets in the workflow so priorities and tasks can be adjusted and reassigned to ensure that deadlines are met. The BPM workflow engine includes easy-to-use tools for designing and modeling workflows, and for orchestrating human tasks as well as automated processes (transcoding, file transfers, etc.). It’s also possible to create contextual “To Do” lists, which simplify the workflow for operators and ensure compliance to established procedures.

The advanced MAM platform unifies diverse systems to provide an end-to-end, cross-system metadata, content and workflow management solution. Highlights include:
• Integrated, single database solution with centralized, multimedia content catalogue with highly customizable data model
• Enterprise search engine for indexing and searching for fast, easy content sharing and repurposing
• Built-in tools for key operational tasks (ingest, production, distribution, etc.)
• Highly scalable, based on open standards in broadcast and IT
• Integration tools (Web Services APIs, MXF, XML, etc.) for building a cross-system, end-to-end solution linking together traffic, graphics, post-production, automation and archive

Added to Dalet MAM core and adapted for media businesses, the BPM-Compliant Workflow Engine  is a non-proprietary workflow engine follows the BPMN 2.0 Business Process Management standard.
• Adds visibility to your enterprise by exposing operational processes/workflows to business layer
• Greater clarity in the process chain adds value to the business enterprise
• Improves agility to react to industry and competitive shifts
• Orchestrates and automates IT processes and human tasks for greater productivity and efficiency

Design tool for modeling workflows allows users to graphically design your workflows.
• Visual modeling based on BPMN 2.0 standardized notation helps define roles, responsibilities and processes. Precise, graphical representation helps identify and correct gaps, redundancies and inefficiencies

With Real-time Data for Business Reporting, audit trails improve accountability with easily traceable paths for key actions in production chain. Accessible in customized reports or available as raw data for complex analysis, data can be used to build Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for ongoing Business Activity Monitoring.

Contextual To Do lists streamline the workflow and ensure compliance with established procedures. Tasks are prioritized and assigned to individual users or user groups. When operators accept a task, the tools needed to complete the task (video editor, metadata form, etc.) automatically open on the user’s desktop. There is no doubt about which tool to use, what asset to work on or how to proceed as user prompts drive the task to completion.

The New Graphical User Interface is completely updated to meet modern usability standards and will provide a consistent look across all applications. The GUI also features different “skins.” Either a light or dark background can be applied to particular functions or workgroups in order to make the desktop tools easier to see and navigate. For instance, the dark background might be applied for technical operators who perform tasks in low-light environments such as gallery control rooms, while the light background might be more beneficial for users focused on text, metadata entry, indexing and logging.

Dalet One Cut is a real-time, multitrack video and audio editing platform. One Cut is the ideal tool for multimedia journalists and content prep operators. The system can be configured to match the complexity of different tasks and the proficiency of the users. Clips can be stored in the Dalet Clip Bin where they can be shared, assembled and storyboarded.

Dalet also announced the first version release of the Dalet Xtend module for Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 software. The new module, which provides seamless workflow collaboration between the Dalet Media Asset Management (MAM) platform and Adobe Premiere Pro CS6, will be demonstrated as part of Dalet’s MAM solutions for News, Sports, Program Prep, and Archiving workflows.

“Dalet Xtend provides a level of interaction that goes well beyond simple export and import exchanges of EDLS between Dalet and Adobe Premiere Pro CS6. It’s an integration that leverages the Dalet API and Adobe SDK very effectively to offer tremendous functionalities that make the NLEs an integral part of the overall production rather than separate islands of production,” says Kevin Savina, director of product management, Dalet. “The operations between systems are much smoother and transparent. Most importantly, all the valuable metadata are maintained throughout the editing process. This interoperability significantly increases productivity and collaboration for editing workgroups.”

“By working together on Dalet Xtend, we’ve delivered a unified environment that allows creative talent to work together with greater ease,” said Simon Williams, director of strategic relations at Adobe. “The Dalet Xtend integration with Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 provides users with increased efficiency and productivity by presenting all the relevant data they need in a single interface and ensuring crucial metadata flows between the systems.”

Dalet Xtend for Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 makes production more seamless in every type of workflow scenario. Using the Xtend Panel, Adobe Premiere Pro users can connect directly to the Dalet database to view available content (clips, EDLs, raw videos, sound bytes, etc.). Dalet users can also push material, such as EDLs and clips created in Dalet, directly to Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 editor for finishing. The finished piece can then be exported back to Dalet as a new title or saved against a placeholder. It is also possible to trigger specific events, such as review and approval processes, when saving against a placeholder.

The Dalet collaboration with Adobe is a long-term relationship, and additional feature enhancements are expected. For instance, when material is opened into the NLE, the different locators (QC information, sports logs, rights metadata, etc.) are visible to the users. The craft editors can also add additional metadata as they work. Essential information, such as descriptive locators and usage rights, flows back and forth and – thanks to the intelligent genealogy – is tracked by the Dalet content catalogue.

The Dalet MAM engine expertly manages all metadata and media processes. Genealogy metadata linking the editor’s material to the original sources can be preserved and content is better referenced throughout, making searches of the content catalogue and archives more efficient; content is more readily accessible to everyone who needs it. Dalet Xtend can significantly reduce expensive in-suite production time, streamline the workflow, and improve media management.

Turner Sports Central has been shortlisted on the content management category of the Innovation Awards for its new multisport asset management (MAM) system, which logs, tracks, and retrieves more than 27,000 live recording hours of content from more than 6,000 individual events each year — around two million highlights captured each year.

Dalet, a provider of MAM solutions for News, Sports, Programs, Archives, and Radio, provides the managerial MAM core for the new system with the Dalet Enterprise Edition MAM platform, which unifies workflow and metadata management across several different systems.

Turner Sports operates its Atlanta Sports Central production center 365 days a year to support its coverage of over 40 different sports and five national sports leagues, including the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Basketball Association (NBA), Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR), and the Professional Golfers Association of America (PGA), providing content that is used to feed live broadcasts, websites, mobile services, other multimedia platforms, and on-demand services in support of these partner leagues.

Dalet worked closely with Turner and multiple vendors to create a streamlined workflow at Turner Sports Center with integrations that included the in-house “Feeds Request 24/7” system for scheduled recordings, EVS servers for centralized ingest and broadcast playout, Stainless Code for event logging, Apple Final Cut Pro for craft editing, and Active Storage, Quantum, and NetApp for storage. The project has a database that references 3,000 teams and 30,000 players but despite the huge throughput of the system — it is currently configured for 26 ingest and 16 playout channels — any content is available for logging, editing and viewing within 10 seconds.

“We congratulate Turner Sports on their selection as a finalist in the prestigious IBC Innovation Awards competition. Dalet is very pleased to have a leading role in this very successful project,” says Stephane Schlayen, COO, Dalet. “The breadth and depth of this effort across so many different live sports events offers a tremendous example of how best-of-breed technologies can be combined to produce a fully integrated solution that meets very complex sets of requirements. Turner Sports has created a sports production MAM that allows them to leverage the value of their content across multiple platforms on game day and well into the future, as assets can be easily searched, browsed, and retrieved for different purposes.”

While live broadcasts are in progress, Dalet is involved with multiple tasks that are simultaneously underway in the production center. Dalet initiates recordings to the SAN and immediately indexes these assets in Dalet, making them available to everyone who needs them, including Dalet users, loggers, craft editors, and EVS operators.

This project represents the first deployment of the Dalet MAM-EVS integration, which was announced last year. This integration allows the exchange of content between systems. For instance, the EVS capability to convert high-resolution media into several different formats makes high-resolution media available to Final Cut Pro craft editors, and corresponding low-resolution media available to loggers and Dalet desktop editors at the same time, while the recording is still in progress.

Practically, this means that a logger can log an action in low-resolution just seconds after the play takes place and both craft and desktop editors can bring that logged action into their edit timeline as soon as the logger has entered his log. In addition, selected clips in Dalet are visible via the EVS IP Director interface to enable collaborative work. A Dalet user can create a video clip in a predefined clip bin by using any of the Dalet tools while ensuring the preservation of the defined media from the EVS recording train.

The Dalet hierarchy of Clip Bins follows EVS’ legacy structure of pages and banks to make it easier for EVS Playout Operators to access this new clip on the EVS LSM (Live Slow Motion) hardware control panel, or within EVS IP Director.