Automation in Post-Production:Fighting the Progress Bar

Boris PolyakHead of video editing facilityRed Square LLC, for NATEXPO 2016

Post-production of entertainment television

• Entertainment is not news, nor sports, nor cinema• Strict deadline, like in the news • Lots of cameras, like in sports• Emotional complex storytelling through video editing, like in movies

• Stuck with the same computer hardware and editing software• Extra challenges, same tools

• Each show requires its own workflow

Parallel workflows take less time

Ingest Profilesediting Story editing Video

editingSound

sweeteningTo

tape

Ingest

Profilesediting

Story editing Video editing

Sound sweetening

To tape

Indivisible workflow steps —three kinds

• Creative tasks• The story is created here, with decisions made by humans• Could not be automated (yet)• Software and hardware should not interfere with decision making

• Technical tasks• Do not involve decision making• Should be eliminated if possible, or at least automated• Software and hardware should not turn creative tasks in technical tasks• Examples: multicamera track synchronization

• Progress bar meditation• Should be replaced with automation

The progress bar meditation

Automation in video editing

• Automating progress bars:• Makes tasks parallel and takes them out of the project critical path• Lowers the possibility of errors and overall length of project• Increases the relative share of creative tasks• More time for creative tasks might lead to better product quality

• The longest progress bars, because digital video is so “heavy”:• Copying from storage to storage• Transcoding

Methods of automation

• One step: copy or transcode• Several steps: copy, then transcode, then copy• Workflow automation, workflow orchestration:

• Branching• Decision making: if – then – else• Use and generate variables for decisions:

• File size, file name, file location• Metadata• Content analysis: video length, frame size, loudness,

color space, aspect ratio, length

Telestream Vantage

• Transcoding into all professional codecs and containers• Decoding everything that is supported by DirectShow

• Copying to every possible destination• Local, SAN, NAS, SFTP, FTPS, WebDAV, S3, Aspera• Nexio, GrassValley AMP, Avid MediaStream

• Video analysis• Size, field dominance, codec, bit depth, color space, metadata• Letterboxing, pillarboxing, loudness analysis and correction• Integrated with auto-QC such as Vidchecker, InterraSystem Baton

• Decision making based on analysis results

Transcode, move, notify

Decide what to do based on the frame size

Take several different actions based on the file name

From our experience

• Small automations can solve big issues that didn’t look big• Any automation should make as many decisions as possible• Document, explain, repeat — humans need that• The simpler the interface, the better

• Drop folders• Premiere Pro panel• МАМ integration should be easy

• Monitoring and high availability become important fast• Feedback from the system matters

(even though it is the less obtuse progress bar, yes)

Job Status View provides online monitoring for Vantage tasks

Post-production automation goals

• Increasing time spent on creative tasks• Reducing downtime and error rate

• Computers are better at some technical decisions • Partial automation is better than no automation

• Taking tasks out of critical path• Long tasks automation

• Transcoding• Copying from storage to storage