Inspired by a new CEO for kykNET, Convera Screening Room from Knowledge Focus has made the already well-run M-Net video library easier to search through for kykNET archivist Zenobia Gillion.
She explains that when new kykNET CEO Theo Erasmus took on the job of running the local Afrikaans TV channel, he wanted to know what he had to work with. While the kykNET library was well-catalogued and ordered, the only information Gillion could give him was the title, a synopsis and the producer of a particular show, but not information on the actual content, frame-by-frame, of the tapes.
Explains Dave Hagen, head of broadcast services at M-Net: "We have more than 290 000 tapes in our library. M-Net does not have copyright on most of those. However, where M-Net does hold copyright on a show, and the out-takes of the show, we have the opportunity to re-use footage that has already been shot, significantly reducing production costs."
To illustrate: if a producer needs a picture of a leopard in a tree for a wildlife programme, he needs to gather his crew, take them off to a game reserve, look for the leopard and then have the correct conditions under which to shoot footage of the leopard, all at tremendous cost per day. Instead, with Convera Screening Room, the producer can ask Gillion for footage of leopards in trees and have it delivered to his desktop computer to search for exactly the correct camera angle.
Says Hagen: "The challenge was to find technology that allows us to mine the footage we have, in order to help us run our business more cost-effectively. We ran a three-month pilot phase, which cost us very little as we didn`t have to buy the software outright. After those three months, it became clear that Convera Screening Room from Knowledge Focus was the answer we were looking for."
He points out that this system is not technology forced through from the IT department, but rather technology requested by users.
Gillion agrees: "Convera Screening Room is an archivist`s dream. Traditionally, I would have to pull a tape from the library and go through it to find suitable footage for producers. Now, it`s much easier to search for information, because I simply type in a word and a range of different footages is displayed."
The project team has started digitising kykNET and Carte Blanche footage in low resolution (ie not broadcast quality but home video quality), and will move on to other M-Net content soon. The digitisation process automatically captures both the moving images and a storyboard, and generates an automatic time-code. This low-resolution footage with its concurrent metadata is then imported into Convera Screening Room, where it is fully searchable and is available on the desktop.
When asked why the digitisation process is not in high resolution, Hagen explains that while there is much hype around media asset management, M-Net`s requirement is not for a new library system, but simply for a new way to search through the library it already has.
Piet Dempsey, MD of Knowledge Focus, agrees: "The value of being able to search through content intelligently cannot be underestimated. This solution puts M-Net on par with leading organisations such as Encyclopedia Britannica and National Geographic Television, and allows M-Net to create additional markets for its video assets."
Share
Knowledge Focus was formed in August 2000 after a management buy-out of Excalibur Technologies Africa from Grintek Electronics. The company markets a range of products to help customers manage their information assets.
Knowledge Focus is managed by Piet Dempsey and Graham Melvill-Smith, who both have extensive experience in the field of digital asset management.
The company supports and serves organisations which have a need to retrieve information (knowledge) with accuracy and speed. In short, it is able to assist any organisation that has problems finding its information.
Knowledge Focus concentrates on the knowledge retrieval and knowledge preservation markets with special attention to the delivery of information (knowledge) for the competitive intelligence (CI) and strategic marketing intelligence (SMI) markets, and is a master reseller for a number of exciting technologies that enable these business functionalities.
Through these technologies, including Convera products, Knowledge Focus is able to assist companies in storing and retrieving data from the following internal and external sources: general office documents, intranets, groupware applications, ERP systems, existing document management systems, the Internet, relational databases, digital images, video and paper-based documents.
The company head office is in Pretoria, and some of its clients include M-Net, NEMISA, Eskom, Technikon SA, Genbel Securities, Kumba Resources and government.