Explosion in delivery channels and formats creates new workflow challenges and promotes new business opportunities worldwide

AmberFin, a leading provider of file-based workflow software solutions for content owners, broadcasters, sports organizations and post production houses, discusses four emerging industry trends that are set to impact organizations that are required to deliver content to consumers.

1. Pressing need for file-based workflows:

Traditional tape-centric working is simply proving impractical given the massive growth in file-based acquisition and the demand for file-based delivery. Therefore, the requirement to move to file-based workflow is becoming increasingly important and organizations that proactively review and upgrade their workflow processes will be in a strong position to embrace new client demands, reducing time to market and driving new revenue streams.

2. Increasing adoption of ‘generic’ IT:

Fortunately, the increasing power of cost-effective generic IT-based products enables media organizations to significantly reduce their dependence on high-cost proprietary systems. As such, there is an increasing adoption of generic IT, which is inherently suitable for file-based workflows.

3. SOA:

With the rise in the deployment of generic IT, organizations are moving away from traditional architectures, sparking a renewed interest in Service Oriented Architectures (SOA). SOA offers significant advantages including, drastically reducing the cost of buying, upgrading and scaling complex multi-vendor systems.

4. S3D:

Finally, and arguably the trend most difficult to predict, is wider market acceptance of S3D. While the S3D business model is well established in the cinema, there is little prospect of real revenue from broadcast audiences in the near future. This is causing the industry to question whether current broadcast S3D operations, which typically rely on proprietary expensive hardware and baseband video operation, present a sustainable business model. Instead, file-based workflow, generic IT and SOA architecture are now being seriously considered as a viable model even for S3D operations.

“Media organizations visiting NAB this year will be looking for cost-effective and practical solutions to solve their workflow challenges and generate additional revenue,” comments Bruce Devlin, CTO at AmberFin. “Solving workflow issues is at the core of AmberFin’s business. By reducing capital costs of new equipment and the workflow costs of producing an increasing number of deliverables, media organizations can focus on creating new business opportunities, offering new services and attracting new clients.

“In answer to these pressing industry challenges, AmberFin will be launching its ‘Scalable Media Factory’ at NAB this year – a family of modular software products that scale with an organization’s business requirements.”

AmberFin will be attending NAB 2011 from Monday 11th through to Thursday 14th April and can be found at Booth #SU4921.

www.amberfin.com