SAM: Snell Advanced Media

Snell demonstrated new capabilities for its Morpheus playout automation system at NAB 2015, including a development which will dramatically improve playout reliability and flexibility – the Schedule Data Miner.

The Schedule Data Miner (SDM) is an advanced scripting technology that enables Morpheus playout automation to interact intelligently with the broadcaster’s scheduling system. This is an industry first, eliminating the need for manual intervention by intelligently linking playout and upstream business systems.

SDM exploits the relationship between the various items in the rundown to enable now and next harvesting to populate graphics templates with title information from the schedule as well as appropriately rounded start times, material blanking (rights-based blanking out), upstream routing control for live programs, and any other rules-based changes that need to be made - all handled within Morpheus. This ensures smooth, error-free playout across multiple channels – automatically, in accordance with user-definable rules. In this way, SDM eliminates mistakes or blank screens, so protecting revenues, increasing confidence and enabling human resources to be redeployed to more productive areas.

Also new is thumbnails and browse video on the Morpheus Edit Workstation when working in conjunction with ICE Channel-in-a-Box running under Momentum MAM and workflow automation. Users can now simply import the rundown from the scheduling system and click on the thumbnails of any item for a visual check, adding greatly to operator confidence. In and out timecodes can also be modified to accommodate scheduling changes.

Also new is support for input of right to left writing on the Morpheus Edit Workstation – enabling its use in languages such as Arabic with right to left orientation.

“Morpheus is all about intelligent enterprise content delivery,” said Karl Mehring, Head of Product Architecture, TV Everywhere at Snell. “The new Schedule Data Miner adds a whole new layer of intelligence to the broadcasting chain, for the first time bridging the gap between scheduling and automation. Continuing viewer fragmentation means broadcasters are striving for ever greater efficiency in delivering content to multiple audiences; Morpheus and SDM deliver this efficiency – and the confidence necessary for broadcasters to fully benefit from it.”