Tapeless is tough, say TV industry

So no surprises in Broadcast’s Technology Survey: file-based workflow is the television industry’s biggest single technological worry.

Nearly half of respondents pinpointed that a world without tape, largely driven by a fall in supply of tapes following the Japanese Tsunami, as the biggest technological challenge for the year ahead. Delving a little deeper, specific worries include storage and archiving, codecs and metadata.

Industry experts are now very much aware that tapeless costs money and you need to think carefully before you pick a basket in which to place all your eggs. The cost and logistics involved in managing, tagging, storing and archiving huge reams of data is proving a challenge for all parts of the industry. For producers and facilities in particular the challenge for the year ahead will be to make their investments in tapeless workflow pay.

Darlow Smithson’s Director of Operations highlights the extra costs that are now being factored into each shoot to cover the cost of data wranglers and workflow consultants.

“It’s an expensive process at the moment. While the hardware is cheap, the management and storage of material is not.”

Of course Aframe sees these problems as opportunities. CEO David Peto explained how his team regularly dries the brows of stressed executives at some of the largest production companies in the industry.
“We’re not just talking about how Aframe might help them, we’re advising on the whole of the tapeless process. From finding the right camera to the choosing an edit platform, we’re always happy to help – even if that means the client does not go with Aframe in the end”.