Australia’s Premium Movie Partnership has selected AmberFin's channel partner, Quinto Communications, to supply and commission the new AmberFiniCRFile Player with its advanced Unified Quality Control (UQC) option for video asset checking at its Showtime Movie Channel content preparation facility, located at the Fox Studios Entertainment Quarter in Sydney.
Australia’s Showtime required a single solution that could play back and perform QC analysis on a wide variety of file formats, including its in-house editing format Apple Pro Res and formats used for delivery to broadcast video servers.
Quinto Communications was able to demonstrate that using the new advanced QC option, AmberFin iCR can perform comprehensive QC analysis on the wrapper and essence structure of the file-based video and audio content, as well as generate a comprehensive compliance report.
When first launched last year, AmberFin's UQC integrated Digimetric's Aurora system was designed to provide file-based QC after ingest and checks for common file wrapper anomalies to prevent expensive mistakes. Aurora tools also automatically check for a variety of compliance violations, including container metadata and delivery metrics, thereby reducing the burden on operators.
Earlier this year at NAB, AmberFin showcased development work intended to increase the number of third-party QC systems, including vendors such as VidCheck (VidChecker), Tektronix (Cerify) and Metaglue (MXFixer). The provision of a wider choice enables users to integrate UQC seamlessly within their existing workflows more easily. Also, the option of integrating multiple third-party systems within UQC empowers users to compare and contrast measurements from the different systems, increasing overall confidence in the quality of their media files.
Incorporating customer feedback from existing UQC users, the latest version comes with metadata workflows and possesses additional logic, which increases the system's overall efficiency and enhances the user experience.
With this new version of UQC, the operator can perform tasks with two mouse clicks with no need to import or export EDLs. This leads to fast and efficient workflows where QC is not a means in itself but makes the whole workflow better. These refinements lead to an enhanced user experience with higher levels of trust in media assets for facilities and their customers.
Established in 1995, Showtime is jointly owned by four of the world's pre-eminent film studios: 20th Century Fox, NBC Universal, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures and Liberty Global International.
