What can go wrong?
In the complex world of media workflows, pretty much anything and everything, and they can arise at any point in the media lifecycle. Some of the most common examples include:
- Video errors, such as blacks, freeze frames, or distortion to the video.
- Audio problems, like varying loudness, incorrect audio layout, or glitches.
- Subtitle issues, such as being out of sync or styling mistakes.
All of these have a significant impact on the user experience, making it crucial to avoid.
Why is it a challenge?
Content validation can be a challenge and here are our top reasons why:
1. Media workflows are complex
The media supply chain involves a number of steps before a quality video asset is ready to be sent downstream. At each step of the process, the video asset is further adapted and refined. This includes adding audio tracks and subtitles, which are often added by external subtitling agencies. Each step also introduces more metadata. All of this also means that at each step there is more potential to impact the quality of the video before it reaches the consumer.
2. There are more playout platforms than ever
Video content consumption has changed dramatically over recent years. Consumers have more choice than ever and increasingly expect the content they want when and where they want it. Media companies often deliver video content to multiple distribution platforms, both in terms of linear and VOD, and in terms of multiple devices. Each one has its own different criteria and requires its own set of validation steps. This only serves to make validation that much more complex, as well as making errors on some of those platforms all the more likely.
3. Automated tools need to work alongside manual operators
These days it is common to have automated tools to assist with quality control. These are great and certainly speed up the process if used wisely. However there will always be a need for an operator to validate the results. This means that they are only really valuable if it is possible to have a swift review of the outcome. You do not want a QC operator having to trawl back through large sections of the asset to validate the auto QC results.
How do we solve it?
Addressing these challenges requires a number of things:
- Validation of all aspects of the assets, including video, audio, and subtitles
- Playback of all tracks to show what a viewer would see and hear
- Metadata visualisation - helping you visualise and understand the metadata and automated QC markers
- An easy way to annotate and comment on things that need to be amended so that teams can collaborate seamlessly
- Support for every possible type of device and platform
Ultimately, QC operators need to have a bird’s eye view of the entire network to be able to react and respond as necessary.
Accurate.Video Validate is a QC and validation solution specifically designed for collaborative professional media workflows with time-based metadata in mind. Designed around a zoomable and interactive timeline showing all available asset components & metadata, it allows QC operators to quickly spot check efficiently, using configurable hot-keys.