IBC2015 Q&A: Tedial’s Jay Batista on the ‘Evolution’ of Content Management

Tedial was on hand at IBC last week, showcasing the enhanced version of its media IT platform, Tedial Evolution, for the first time in Europe. Tedial Evolution extends media-asset–management (MAM) functionality with advanced search/indexing tools, new services to surf/explore archives, and improved integration between archive and workflow engines to reinforce a collaborative environment. Among the highlights are a new user interface, new search/indexing engine, true object relational database, expanded Mediaset, and extended business-process–management services.

SVG sat down with Jay Batista, GM, U.S. Operations, Tedial, to discuss the latest enhancements available in its platform, the company’s growth beyond its established European footprint, and how Tedial Evolution can serve today’s rapidly changing sports-production operations.

Can you describe how the latest version of your platform, Tedial Evolution, works and any new features being highlighted at IBC2015?
We approached MAM and workflow differently from everyone else. We made a logistical planning platform and married a MAM to it, and that gives us all our integrations and all our movement of media. Then, we enhanced it specifically for sports applications. It’s browser-based, and it’s a true object relational database, which means I can have a main program essence and then tie hundreds or thousands of other pieces of media to it. That allows you to send your stringers out and say, “Give me some color shots of the field and tie it into the show.” The stringer can do it from their browser and upload it using an Aspera or [other vendor’s file-transfer] plugin. We can really help the broadcasters do that.

Also, there are two other things that are really exciting with our product. You can push production to the edge. [Users] can do metadata markups, file EDLs, mark-ins, mark-outs. They can do highlight reels, everything from the field, and we have the ability to tie our back-office systems to the MAM now. So you can tie traffic, rights management, billing, work-order systems, and so on. So you can have the media now be aware of where it is on the traffic log, and what its rights are and what its rights elements are. For example, you might have product placements you need to market, and [Tedial Evolution] knows that, in six months, you have to replace those frames or [that] the music is no longer available after a certain date. Then, because we tie into other systems, we can know what the DAM [digital-asset manager] has that’s associated with it. We know where the banner ads are, we know where the photography is — all associated to that main program. That gives you a lot more flexibility when you’re doing work.

In what applications have you seen the Tedial platform serve the sports market?
For sports, we are a partner with EVS and integrated with the EVS product line. We can extend the EVS system throughout the entire pack of the broadcast systems. So, with EVS, you do your final melt, and you put that aside. Now, [with] all that associated media, we can use it for all kinds of different things in the organization. What differentiates us from the other vendors is, we’re a true enterprise system. We’re perfect for big networks, multi-sites, multi-tenants, multi-departmental projects, and the ability to tie DAM into it is extremely important.

For example, at a large event like the Olympics, there are all these little edge events and little interviews. Now [a broadcaster] can have a stringer [cover those events] and give [the stringer] a login screen on a browser, and the stringer can log in, input in the metadata, and then send it in. Then, depending on who’s sending what in, it can be automatically tagged and distributed in the network. I speak a lot about media-logistics planning, which means that what we’re really doing is helping the broadcasters and the network operators move the media around in a very effective way so that they can get their jobs done quicker and faster and get it to air.

Tedial has been known primarily as a Europe-focused company, but how are you looking to expand beyond Europe internationally?
[Recently], we signed MTV in Australia. We signed Quickplay Media in the U.S. We’re having nice steady adoption around the world. In Europe, we’re now considered like the Rolls-Royce, and we’re trying to grow that brand in the U.S., Latin America, and Asia.

The company is 15 years old. It was founded in Europe, and roughly 80% of our clients are in Europe. We’re really well-known in Europe, and, a year ago, they hired me to open up North America. Then we have Nigel Stoddard to open up Latin America from Mendoza, Argentina, and we have David Able handling Asia. So we are growing globally, but our core reputation is in Europe.

We also have a huge system with Televisa in Mexico. We do all their sports logging and distribution. That goes really well. We do all their soccer, but we’re also doing their telenovela production, their archive management, their news distribution. They’ve got four locations, about 500 users. So it’s a massive project. The nice thing about our tools is, we sell perpetual licenses, and it’s easy to just add more modules and keep expanding. So that project originally started in Mexico City as an archive tool, and then we tied it into traffic, and then we added the news, and then we added the sports logging. Bit by bit, it just grew into what it is today.