Perform using Dalet to grow global sports production interests
Dalet Digital Media Systems has revealed that benefits in end-to-end production powered by the Dalet business solution have enabled digital media company Perform to expand its global operations, which will be further strengthened by Dalet news production and distribution capabilities.
“In the week we went live with Dalet, we saw the difference immediately and we hit a new level of content output only previously seen at peak periods,” says Richard Copeman, Perform’s head of news. “Adding Dalet news scripting, news production and distribution capabilities has enhanced the efficiency of our teams across the globe, allowing Perform to both reduce the number of different systems required and demystify the technical complexities that come with managing large amounts of content for our staff.”
Copeman adds: “We always talk of the ‘need for speed’ when dealing with both breaking news and other content-rich events, and Dalet will undoubtedly allow us to maximise this, leading to quicker – and indeed crisper – content reaching our global client base. All in all, Dalet is already a vital member of our team.”
The comprehensive installation will see Perform increase multimedia content output across its international bases and, with Dalet, become a reference test site for fast turnaround IP-based workflows.
Mike Edwards, Perform’s head of post engineering, comments on the deployment: “To achieve our ambitious goals, we worked with Dalet as our technical business partner, building a fluid infrastructure that would respond to both industry and internal demands. These can include the agility to map ever-increasing amounts of data with audio and visual assets in support of our sports news agency Omnisport. The new foundation will allow us to facilitate the swift and secure exchange of files between multiple locations as we spread our operations worldwide.”
Specifically, Perform is using Dalet as the basis of remote workflow operations between the lead UK operation and offices in Munich, Amsterdam and Uruguay. News desk staff in the three local bureaus log in via the Dalet web client, browse media and mark in and out points before sending the clip to a watch folder. Clips can be sent to the UK by the Aspera FASP fast transfer protocol for further editing and routed back to the overseas offices in the same manner.
“This remote workflow, which is individual for each location, has enabled us to grow our offices and further our plans for expansion globally,” says Edwards. “There is no doubt that we would not have been able to achieve this without Dalet.”
Additional feature highlights of the expanded installation could include deployment of the specialised Dalet Sports Logger module, integrated content scheduling with ScheduALL, and deeper integration with Aspera Orchestrator to automate the selection, extraction, processing and distribution of match highlights. “The next step is to integrate the clips out of Orchestrator with metadata, for which Dalet is the ideal platform,” says Edwards. With an eye for evolving technologies and a further global expansion of its platforms, Perform will work closely with Dalet to become a test site for IP ingest for its newsroom operation.
Perform’s portfolio of digital sports rights covers a broad range of sporting leagues, tournaments and events, and using that portfolio it creates, distributes and commercialises a broad range of multimedia-ready sports content. This includes 30+ daily clips of Omnisport Uncut; raw, unedited content for broadcasters to incorporate into their news and sports programming; and daily sports bulletins of 26-minute and five-minute durations. Wider integration with Dalet across Perform’s multi-site network means that more content can be ingested and distributed by its production teams. Production Systems Administrator Mattias Dabo, who recently took over the administration of the Dalet Platform, comments on the intuitiveness of the Dalet MAM: “Having acted as project lead in migrating our Omnisport news team from Avid iNEWS to Dalet NRCS, I’ve found this to be both an exciting and educational project that has been aided by the intuitive interface provided in the Dalet MAM. I’m looking forward to further developments in our Dalet MAM platform and expanding our workflows globally.”
“Perform installed Dalet to better manage its multiplatform production output worldwide, and we are excited to continue working with Perform to optimize the full power of the Dalet MAM capabilities,” says Chris Wright, general manager, Dalet UK. “Thanks to Dalet, they were able to consolidate the production infrastructure around fully integrated desktop-based tools to speed up turnaround for time-critical sports content. The centralized, shared database is perfectly suited to Perform’s localised and remote workflow collaboration needs, and the MAM is readily scalable and flexible to respond to the demands of growth – fast.”