Tracking from servers and workflow applications in media production

The paper analyses the possibilities and alternatives to track servers, control systems and workflow software used in media production. In the existing systems for global PMS (production management) the collection of the time and event data from the production chain is normally quite laborious. Data senders, in object formats, parsing, databases and powerful software are needed to track, parse, save and report job flow and process behaviour. In our proposed solutions we prefer tracking servers automatically, with no permanent data sender modules. Distributed components and object brokers (Java, CORBA) include many useful generic concepts. To keep the PMS overheads and costs on a reasonable level, without sacrificing the scale ability, these technologies offer interoperability, persistence and open-system configuration methods. Metadata architectures are standardised under the W3 Consortium, including resource description (RDF) and markup (XML). This means that the media structures and documents become self-describing and carry their structure and semantics to any later users, up to the end-users. Evidently production management is easier due to the more efficient metadata and the well-defined content and workflow.