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In recent years, IT-based production and archiving of media has matured to a level which enables broadcasters to switch
over from tape- or CD-based to file-based workflows for the production of their radio and television programs. This
technology is essential for the future of broadcasters as it provides the flexibility and speed of execution the customer
demands by enabling, among others, concurrent access and production, faster than real-time ingest, edit during ingest,
centrally managed annotation and quality preservation of media. In terms of automation of program production, the radio
department is the most advanced within the VRT, the Flemish broadcaster. Since a couple of years ago, the radio
department has been working with digital equipment and producing its programs mainly on standard IT equipment.
Historically, the shift from analogue to digital based production has been a step by step process initiated and coordinated
by each radio station separately, resulting in a multitude of tools and metadata collections, some of them developed
in-house, lacking integration. To make matters worse, each of those stations adopted a slightly different production
methodology. The planned introduction of a company-wide Media Asset Management System allows a coordinated
overhaul to a unified production architecture. Benefits include the centralized ingest and annotation of audio material and
the uniform, integrated (in terms of IT infrastructure) workflow model. Needless to say, the ingest strategy, metadata
management and integration with radio production systems play a major role in the level of success of any improvement
effort. This paper presents a data model for audio-specific concepts relevant to radio production. It includes an
investigation of ingest techniques and strategies. Cooperation with external, professional production tools is
demonstrated through a use-case scenario: the integration of an existing, multi-track editing tool with a commercially
available Media Asset Management System. This will enable an uncomplicated production chain, with a recognizable
look and feel for all system users, regardless of their affiliated radio station, as well as central retrieval and storage of
information and metadata.
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