Etere Enhances RAI TRADE with Tapeless Reception

04 January 2010

Etere has developed a custom-tailored solution for the RAI Group,consisting on digital delivery of advertising commercials from external agencies to the station through an efficient web-based multimedia content transfer service.

RAI TRADE, the exclusive production distributor of the Italian RAI group, the Italian state owned public broadcaster and the biggest television company in Italy, that operates using Etere’s standard and tailored solutions, many television channel stations including both analogue and digital terrestrial, as well as satellite offerings. Thanks to Etere, now the Italian broadcaster RAI is able to offer to their content providers the opportunity of delivering advertising commercials digitally and remotely. Etere as usual, has developed a new solution based on broadcaster’s most current critical needs; and in the specific case of RAI, Etere has paid attention to the long waiting periods caused by the time employed by an advertising commercial contained into a physical video tape to arrive from an external agency to the RAI’s production department. In this terms, RAI and Etere determined that these assets must be provided in faster times each time; and this is how RAI TRADE Tapeless Reception has born, based on the existing Etere Tapeless web service, it is a custom-tailored solution designed with the purpose of offering a time-effective and reliable way to allow digital content transferences between external agencies and the station. RAI TRADE Tapeless Reception permits important material to be received digitally via internet, that is, avoiding the use of magnetic tapes, bringing a shorter delivery time than this required by traditional means. This web service eliminates the need of creating physical copies, entrusting valuable material to private couriers, and risking of excessive waiting times, and most important of all, the use of this service will be totally free. The RAI TRADE Tapeless Reception service has provided the station with the possibility of drastically simplify such a complex process as Commercials Delivery, allowing content providers to deliver advertising commercials through the http://pubblicita.raitrade.it website in only six steps:
1. Provider registers an account and login into the system by using a user and password,
2. Create a form for the asset he intends to transfer,
3. Assets can be uploaded immediately or in a subsequent access directly from either a NLE, a XDCAM, or an e-VTR,
4. Uploaded files are registered into the station’s database,
5. The Provider will receive via email a receipt confirmation message with a low resolution version of the sent video file,
6. Sent assets must wait for a check-out before they will be accepted. The delivery is signed electronically and recorded in the Etere’s database; it includes real-time tracking of transfers, and detailed logs of completed transfers. Once uploaded, advertising files are transferred to RAI TRADE’s storage system, where a proxy version of each file is automatically generated, allowing operators to accurately check video contents and attached metadata, to subsequently decide if they can be broadcasted or not. For RAI TRADE, the implementation of such a technological service, completely empowered by Etere, has served to achieve the following improvements:
- Save an important amount of time in the overall commercials-delivery process,
- Reduce manual intervention to only two phases, upload of assets, and their quality control,
- Get ride of the transport and physical tracking of assets,
- Drastically minimizes physical storage due to the absence of video tapes,
- Eliminates digitization of incoming video tapes on video servers,
- Eradicate the need for time checking of the received materials,
- Avoid redundant controls of media format, content duration and video standard,
- Provide customers with a free of charge electronic service to deliver commercials.