At NAB 2013, AmberFin and New Delhi-based Venera Technologies announced a co-operative development project that will extend the reach of AmberFin’s Unified Quality Control (UQC) platform. The co-operative project will see the integration of Venera Technologies’ Pulsar automated QC system within the AmberFin’s iCR Unified Quality Control platform for content ingest and transcoding operations.
First launched two years ago, UQC still represents a unique approach to file-based media quality control since it combines multiple tools for baseband checks during tape ingest, file-based QC after ingest, and overall operator-controlled QC, including annotation and mark-up. Already incorporating most of the market’s established third-party QC solutions, the addition of Pulsar is strategically important since it completes the set of major QC analysis tool vendors.
This evolutionary development will make AmberFin iCR unique in its capability to provide customers with use of the right QC tool at the right part of their workflows. Once they have done this, they can aggregate the results from all the lifecycle stages in a single interface giving an insight into the way the facilities’ processes are improving the media they process.
“The media industry has accepted the need to automate workflows to keep pace with changing technologies and user behaviour, and QC operations remain a crucial part of broadcast workflows,” commented Vikas Singhal, Co-founder and Executive Director – Business Development at Venera Technologies. “The movement towards file-based workflows and requirement for multi-screen delivery has added complexity to workflows for content providers. It is now necessary for them to adopt QC tools that can detect the issues within their content in an automated manner.
“Pulsar is a leading Automated QC solution and is used by companies such as Encompass Digital Media, Disney, Adstream, ESPN, MLB Networks, Telecom Italia and MPC. Some customers have expressed a desire to use Pulsar from within AmberFin’s UQC environment. We believe the partnership will be beneficial for both our and AmberFin’s customers in allowing them a seamless and rich experience” Singhal continued.
For AmberFin, this project is strategically important since it further extends the versatility of this system and provides a vendor agnostic QC platform that is uniquely well suited to digital file-based workflows and multi-platform media enterprise operations.
“The future integration of Venera’s Pulsar will add significantly to UQC’s flexibility and versatility,” commented Jeremy Deaner, Chief Executive Officer at AmberFin. “Whatever the size and scale of your enterprise operations, and whatever major QC system you have used previously, AmberFin UQC will create new efficiencies and enhance media quality throughout your operation. We look forward to continuing working together closely with the Venera team making this goal come to fruition.”
AmberFin is a company at the heart of solving file-based workflow problems for content owners, broadcasters, sports organizations and post-production houses. The AmberFin Media Factory, based on the iCR family of modular software products, digitizes and transforms new and archived content, combining a service oriented design philosophy with intelligent use of cost-effective generic IT. This enables customers to save time, increase revenues and grow in-line with business demands.
Unique to the Media Factory system, AmberFin’s industry first approach to Quality Control, known as Unified Quality Control (UQC), introduces a QC mark that brings a new level of trust to media assets. UQC uniquely combines an automated process with a human touch, enabling more efficient and effective decision-making and new levels of confidence in the file creation and transformation processes.
Since its inception, AmberFin has enjoyed continuous growth thanks to hundreds of iCR systems being deployed worldwide. Systems that are trusted where quality matters by some of the world’s leading media organizations including HBO, AP, Reuters, WWE, ITV, Sony Pictures, NBA, Turner Broadcasting, ZDF, NRK, National Geographic, BT, Discovery and Warner Brothers.
Venera Technologies is a video solutions company widely known for its innovative products and solutions worldwide. Since its inception in 2003, the company has been delivering quality, innovative solutions and creating long-lasting relationship with its customers. Venera’s flagship offering, Pulsar, improves the operational efficiency for its customers by automating their content QC processes. Pulsar ensures consistent content quality throughout the workflow and is the chosen QC tool for some of the largest media companies worldwide.