The Change Mariner

WGBH-TV Rolls Out Digital Asset System to Position for Convergence

TVWeek:

PBS flagship station WGBH-TV in Boston unveiled a digital asset management center earlier this month that is designed to serve as a test lab for the television industry.

The multimillion-dollar facility is also critical to the future of WGBH because it will allow the station to "morph into a digital library" and share resources across its many different businesses, said David Liroff, VP and chief technology officer at WGBH. "We think this is essential to the future of public broadcasting," he said.

The new center will change the way WGBH uses and reuses content for its various businesses, including the Web, home videos, DVDs, education outreach and books, as well as TV. WGBH and lead technology partner Sun Microsystems also intend to allow other broadcasters and content companies to kick the tires at the so-called "iforce center" and take the technology for a test drive before buying.

Digital asset management is an area of increasing importance as media companies grapple with how to repurpose and share content efficiently. The goal behind digital asset management is to make content easier to search, retrieve and share.

WGBH's need for the system became apparent in the days following Sept. 11, when "Frontline" produced several documentaries.

The staff needed to assemble footage from archives and previous documentaries about al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden, a process in which "Frontline" staff requested 1,500 items from the archives over two months, requiring more than 625 hours of research to retrieve the material. Much of that process relied on the memories of producers who had been with the show more than 20 years and were able to act as detectives to locate the footage.