Last week I had the pleasure of hosting a meeting of the Pittsburgh chapter of SBE (Society of Broadcast Engineers) at the Consol Energy Center.  The topic was “Working With Files” and was a great primer for those just entering the world of file-based workflow as well covering some gaps in knowledge (note to self) for those of us who have been in this world for several years.

I have to admit that while I’ve been working in video production since 1992, this was my first time ever at a SBE meeting.  When I was younger, I always thought the subject matter was above my skill level, and as I went further in my career I honestly didn’t think it wasn’t relevant to my career path.  I’ve always been a “self-taught” kind of person, diving into manuals and product guides and white papers and documents of similar like.  With the advent of digital and file-based workflows, I began to wonder what groups like this could offer in the present day market.

I can say with humbleness, that I was completely wrong.

Applause to the local leadership group of this organization for taking an aggressive and welcomed approach to bring both education and focused direction on the file-based issues that we’re all faced with on a day to day basis.

From the meeting description:

“This full evening of important content is intended to be preparation for a follow up meeting that local SBE Chapter officers are calling a “File Summit”, at which we hope to get all of the stations in the region and much of the production community to participate in an interactive meeting aimed at smoothing the workflow which ultimately delivers content to stations.  SBE, as a neutral party, is uniquely prepared to help all parties arrive at common practices which will produce both more efficient workflow and superior quality in locally aired programs and commercials.”

Not only is this welcome, but it’s also needed.  While working with files instead of tape has made many aspects of our lives easier, it’s also opened up an avalanche of new issues with the complexity and differences in the types of files we all work with as we try to interact and share footage with each other.  The days of “just dump it onto Betacam for me” are gone, and they aren’t coming back.

That doesn’t mean we can’t find new standards to base our interchange on.  That’s precisely what SBE 20 is trying to accomplish with this series.

John Luff gave a good tutorial on the basics of file types and metadata.  I always enjoy hearing John speak because I always find myself coming away with some new little nugget of knowledge or looking at something from a slightly different perspective.   Sometimes you just need someone to turn your eyes one degree and it makes a big difference.

Ed Fraticelli from Production Masters also spoke and gave some real world examples of what they deal with at PMI every day.  It was very eye opening to see how Ed encounters and deals with some of the same issues we face at the Penguins every day.  Almost laughable.  Almost.

Snapshot of Pittsburgh Penguins workflow

Karl Paulsen, senior engineer at Diversified Systems, talked a bit about our setup here at Consol Energy Center.  He hit specifically on “ad hoc” workflows and “media aware” workflows. I think I heard a collective gasp from the audience when Karl threw up this slide, which gives a pretty decent look at our overall workflow.  If you were there and heard sobs, that would have been me in the corner.

In a wicked and ironic twist, as I finally had a chance to talk about this stuff in front of a group who could understand what I said, I made my short presentation as devoid of technical detail as I could.  Rather, I talked about what I learned on the projects, the obstacles I encountered, and the mistakes I made.

Yes, hard to believe I made some mistakes.  Probably averaged one a week.  Most were easily fixed, one however was not.  You see, I got fixated so much on the technology that I forgot one thing – the users.  Not in the sense that nearly everything I worked to implement wasn’t based on their workflow, because it was.

Exactly

Where I erred was that I assumed that they would be as deep into the technology as I was.  For some unknown reason, I expected them to be able to catch in on a few weeks/months what had taken me over a year to learn.  When we introduced it to them them, it was as should have been expected, overwhelming. Couple that with some integration delays we had while we were figuring out the network with the physical move from Mellon to Consol, and my timeline, as should have been expected, was delayed.  This is a group that has done an amazing job with the overall transition from facilities.  Heck, they produced an overwhelming amount of content before they even had their desks.  We have a powerful network, a great media-asset management system from Dalet, and good resources to tap. We make strides every day and we’ll get there, it’s just taking a little longer than I expected.  That’s on me.

Bottom line, you can have all the proper technology, procedures, and workflows in place, but if it’s just a spreadsheet full of latin to your end users, you fail.  Which is why I’m so keyed up about what SBE is looking to do here locally, and why I’ll be happy to join the organization and participate in the festivities.