The Client
Cyta is a semi-government organization. It was established with the aim of providing, maintaining and developing a comprehensive telecommunications service, both nationally and internationally. Cyta is considered to be the leading provider of integrated electronic communications services in Cyprus.
Making the best of the island’s geographical location, Cyta has developed an extensive submarine fibre optic cable network linking Cyprus with neighboring countries such as Greece, Israel, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt and, by extension, with the rest of the world. At the same time, Cyta has also developed an equally impressive satellite earth station infrastructure and all this has justifiably turned Cyprus into a regional telecommunications hub.
Cyta provides a broad range of services and facilities which aim to satisfy the ever-increasing needs of its customers for voice and data applications in both fixed and mobile telephony. Particular emphasis is placed on the provision of value-added services, such as content/multimedia via the Internet which, by all accounts, will be the dominant business activity of the next decade.
The Project
Consultics was assigned to supply and install a complete solution for a media archiving management system for audiovisual content and the provision of maintenance and support services to Cyta.
This system was to take input digitized audiovisual files and allow the insertion of Metadata for describing the asset. The input files had various sources and various formats like download from internet, digitization from tapes, files produced from TV production OB Van, files produced or stored on partner tv stations, production agencies, etc.
Consultics provided Cyta with a system that consisted of an archiving software, a database software for storing the metadata, transcoding system for producing low resolution video for visual preview, search engine with preview capability, a Media Player allowing media content preview and basic editing features.
Cyta with a growing catalogue of videos, commercials, and documentaries being captured, edited was looking for a better way to manage all of that content and Consultics’ solution was the ultimate match. This system was selected both for its easy integration with other parts of the workflow, and for the ability to easily share media content between different members of the team and make team work more effective and more efficient.
In addition to the media archiving management system, a ticketing system was developed for the easier and faster communication concerning improvements and bug fixing between Cyta and Consultics.
The outcome
What was delivered was a system that ingests all types of digital media in different ways to suit Cyta’s unique workflow, to transcode video files to different formats, and to manage and control the media once imported with easy search, the addition of metadata and sharing.
Furthermore, an easy distribution of content, ensuring its fitness for the distribution and export to multiple platforms with ease. The system was integrated with several archive solutions that were set with automatic archiving rules.
The system provides Cyta the ability to manage its assets in an easy, flexible way since the system is web-based, similar to a warehouse of an ever-growing pool of videos, audios, images and other forms of digital media.
Consultics’ solutions of media archiving management and ticketing systems allowed Cyta to integrate its assets in the system easily and communicate with Consultics for improvements and bug fixing with efficiency and effectiveness.
