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Mission: An integrated Asset Management
solution for Quantel sQ servers This article describes the technical design and operational features of Quantel‟s „Mission‟
asset management system. The motivation to develop Mission was commercial: at the time,
Quantel‟s highly successful sQ server systems relied on third-party products to provide a
number of common workflows, including scheduled recording and archive management.
Our customers wanted a cost-effective and highly-integrated solution provided within the
familiar Quantel user experience. The Mission solution is scalable to meet the requirements
of all but the largest broadcast installations.
Trevor Francis is Worldwide Marketing Manager, Broadcast at Quantel Ltd. in Newbury, UK. His
responsibility includes steering the roadmap for product development, heading the product management team
and producing presentations and papers for major trade shows.
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Introduction
Mission is a media and asset management system specifically designed for Quantel‟s
server-based production system. It provides extended facilities for the acquisition,
movement, viewing and management of video, file-based media and associated metadata.
Mission has been designed to be modular, allowing our customers to select the workflows
they need, adding more features as and when required.
The feature list includes e.g.:
Scheduled baseband recording tool for capturing video-based feeds
File-based ingest from a both broadcast and domestic/consumer source with built-in automated transcode
Automated capture and association of incoming XML-based metadata – from news agencies, for example
Automated VTR ingest controller
Archive output to disk, data tape or VTR
Advanced search and retrieve of on-line and archived assets from editors desktop
Search and view of media assets from standard web browser.
Media and metadata output to multiple destinations based on a scripted transcode and destination file path
The following diagram shows the workflows in relation to a typical four-server sQ solution.
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SDI ingest- ‘Mission Transfer’
Overview
A product called „Mission Transfer‟ controls ingest of video feeds via sQ Server baseband
HDSDI and SDI video ports.
Three types of job are supported:
Instant „crash recording‟. A spontaneous recording which is not planned.
Timed recording. A single job which will take place some time on the future.
Scheduled recordings. A diary of regular events from sources like News Agencies, overseas
bureaux etc.
The operator can use the Mission Transfer timeline view for direct scheduling of all
recordings. Each row represents an SDI/HDSDI port.
The operator can enter or modify the job parameters in the pop-up dialogue box. Properties
such as start and end time, recording channel, router cross-point are directly entered or
selected. Production metadata defaults to Title, Owner, category and Description. Other
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numeric or text fields are configured by the System Adminstrator (see later section). All
metadata may be added before, during or after a recording.
The status of a job is illustrated by its colour. For example, white indicates a job is queued;
yellow indicates that a job is currently being recorded; red indicates a fault.
The start and end times of a job may be modified by simple drag-and drop on the timeline.
Crash Recordings
These “spontaneous” recordings are started in the Timeline view of Transfer by selecting
the Crash Record function.
The duration of the recording is also set to a configurable default value but can be manually
extended. If however another recording is already scheduled for the same encoding channel,
the Crash Record job duration is set to one minute before the start of the following job.
The metadata may be subsequently entered after the start of the recording.
Repeated Recordings
Repeated recordings are managed using Periodic Jobs view. These are defined once then
subsequently Transfer automatically creates daily corresponding to each instance of the
recording.
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File-based input ‘Mission Transfer’
Mission Transfer utilises “Watch” folders to identify media to be imported into the Quantel
servers. The module periodically checks the contents of such Watch folders. If any new
clips are found, these are transferred to sQ Server and subsequently deleted from the Watch
folders.
Mission is scaled and configured to support multiple file ingest and output of standard
broadcast file formats as supported in the Quantel sQ server.
For any files containing non-broadcast file formats, wrappers or codecs, additional watch
folders may be provided to transcode these to a pre-set sQ server format.
A separate „track‟ on the Mission Transfer timeline screen allows the operator to see and
track file-based transactions and to trace progress or trouble-shoot any problems.
Mission uses an embedded Rhozet Carbon Coder to perform the transcodes.
The range of essence formats supported is constantly reviewed by Rhozet, but includes all
the most-used files generated by professional and domestic devices and software:
MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, H.263, H264, HDV, Flash, DV DVCPro25, DVCPro 50, DVC
Pro HD, AVI, QuickTime, Windows Media, Real, ASF, WMA, WMV, MXF, D10/IMX,
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MPEG 2 PS, MPEG 2 LS, LXF, GXF, 3GP, 3G2, PCM, MP3, DTS, AAC, AMC, AMR-
NB, Windows Media Audio, Real Audio.
The detailed profile e.g. Bit depth, TV standard, aspect etc are preset as part of installation.
File-based output – ‘Mission Tracker’
Any clip on the sQ server may be selected for export as a file to a pre-set destination. This
selection is made in the Quantel „Mission Tracker‟ interface which is an option for all
desktop and craft editing workstations.
The export destination is currently set by a „roller-selector‟ which can be configured with a
matrix of up to 100 destinations and formats.
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Each destination maps to a pre-defined table of scripted destinations which is held in the
Mission Administration module. The destinations take the form of a Windows file path
followed by the selected essence format and wrapper.
Quantel expects the end user to provide suitable bandwidth and storage for the destination
folder host. Once a file is placed in a destination folder it becomes the responsibility of the
receiving system – a playout server, web server etc.
Mission: Technical Structure
The technical structure of Mission is shown in the diagram II. There is a central set of
resources, shown within the ellipse, with additional components related to each of the sQ
servers. The dual redundant „ISA‟, the central management system for the Quantel servers
is also shown as part of the central resources. A typical sQ server system may comprise
between one and eight sQ servers; we are using an example system with four.
Mission has an optional Archive sub-system, this shown in the dotted circle.
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sQ server interfaces to Mission
ISA Sync module
The ISA Sync modules convey database messages between the Mission Database and the
Quantel ISA. They use a special mechanism provided by the sQ servers, called „ISA
listeners‟, which describe any clip generation / modification / deletion activity on the sQ
server mainframes. ISA Listeners remove the need for database polling and ensure the
Mission database remains synchronised with ISA with minimal latency. The Quantel ISA
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Manager will be installed as a Master/Slave pair of mySQL servers. The Mission database
will automatically maintain sync with the current ISA Master.
Port Control
An sQ server mainframe can be configured with up to 8 HD or 12 SD SDI ports. Each
server has an associated pair of Port Control PCs. These convey the commands to server
ports, for example, to set codec formats and begin recordings. Each will have one instance
of port control software for every port on the sQ server. In a typical installation, these Port
Control services will be set to auto-run so as to distribute port control across the pair of PCs.
For example, one unit may control ports 0,2,4,6 and the other may control ports 1,3,5,7.
Mission central services
Core Services
Mission Core Services runs on a redundant pair of PC servers
Core Services handles a number of Mission functions:
System Administration
Key Frame generation
Media management
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System administration
There is a central administration area which stores key central information
Definition of Quantel sQ mainframes and storage
o IP address of Quantel storage management unit („ISA)
o Ingest ports
o Essence formats supported
o Storage capacity
Database configuration (see below)
Keyframe configuration (see below)
Rhozet Carbon Coder definitions
Databases
The Mission Database is an ODBC-capable, relational database (Microsoft SQL)
containing links to preview videos, metadata and system configuration settings.
It is permanently synchronised with the Quantel ISA. It records all clip additions,
modifications and deletions.
In addition to the basic descriptive metadata fields, up to twelve additional user-defined
fields may be configured.
2 x large text fields (4000 chars)
3 x number field
7 x text fields with a maximum length of 255 characters
The Mission database also holds references to essence stored on other hardware locations,
including disk and tape archives. These are interfaced via bespoke „balance modules‟ which
carry metadata and essence movements.
Browse Video & Key Frame Generation
Low resolution video stored in sQ Server is used to optionally generate key frames which
are used in Tracker. Optionally, key frames can be generated at fixed periods or by
automatic key-frame detection. A picture cut detection algorithm generates a key frame at
the beginning of the video and after every detected change of the scene. The timecode
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information is stored in the data base and the JPEG pictures generated at the cut marks are
stored within the Mission file system.
Mission Data Portal
Mission Data Portal is a special version of the Quantel MXF Power Portal dedicated to
Mission.
Mission Data supports the following media transactions:
LBR (ie Quantel MPEG1 proxy video)
HBR - SD or HD essence in MXF wrapper.
The Quantel system design will take account of expected traffic through Data Portals, SDI
ports and HBR editing workstations and scale hardware, storage and network infrastructure
accordingly. Storage has a large but finite bandwidth; traditional video recordings and
playback require a full SD or HD bandwidth for each. This is easily accounted for when
designing the system.
File-based transfers into and out of the system also require bandwidth from the central
storage. File transfers may be expected at speeds greater than real time, therefore the
requirements may be multiples of SD/HD bandwidths. We therefore require more
consultation time with the client during the design stage to understand the expected demand
for simultaneous video and file-based transactions.
Mission Browse server
Mission maintains a browse server for storing LBR video files and keyframes. These are
internal resources used to populate the Quantel „Tracker‟, the library research tool and the
Mission „Webview‟ multi-platform browser.
Rhozet Carbon Server
Mission uses an embedded Rhozet Carbon Coder to transcode between Quantel native and
other file formats. This is a proprietary product, more information available directly form
the suppliers: http://www.rhozet.com/carbon_coder.html
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Mission Archive
For any broadcaster, archive design and management is an immensely complex subject. It
is beyond the scope of this paper to cover in any detail. Our experience has shown that it is
impossible to design an off-the-shelf product which will satisfy all needs. We have
therefore decided to maintain Mission Archive as an optional module. There are ready-
made interfaces to some popular hardware and middleware suppliers, but these are typically
adapted to the specific requirements of the project.
Conclusion
Mission offers a flexible package of workflow tools which are highly integrated into the
Quantel range. It is structured to be flexible in the deployment of features and scalable to
the needs of all but the very largest broadcast installations. Mission itself remains an option,
so the choice of Asset Management solutions remains with the end user.
ENDS.