L'Equipe 24/24

L'Equipe 24/24 has revolutionized the management and use of its archives thanks to NETIA's audiovisual content management solution.

The innovative Content Management Solution (CMS) for l'Equipe 24/24 (the leading French multimedia platform for sports information) operates as an integral part of a workflow ranging from intelligent digitization to broadcasting, now making it possible to strategically optimize the use of documentary archives and to encourage their independent use by journalists.

As part of the major Amaury group, l'Equipe 24/24, the subsidiary in charge of managing l'Equipe's new media, has recently made great progress in the fields of archive management and multimedia convergence.

"Long aware of the necessary transformation of our work as archivists in the world of the Internet, search engines and connected TV, we decided in late 2008 to radically overhaul the obsolete manner in which we were managing our archives", explained Christophe Berthier, Documentation Manager for l'Equipe 24/24.

"Our 12 years of archives were comprised of a pile of 11,000 cassettes, i.e. more than 100,000 documentary files dating back to the 1920s, and taking up an entire room. Unless we changed the way we worked, the sheer explosion in the amount of content to be archived would soon require us to move back the walls!"

This archive management modernization project is part of a wider initiative aimed at upgrading audiovisual production, explained Sébastien Valère, Marketing and Operations Director for l'Equipe 24/24: "With the overriding goal of creating value, we decided to introduce a multimedia tool to manage videos from start to finish, from the archives through to production and broadcasting. The goal was to offer all of our journalists working in different department an easy and intuitive way to access our video archives, fully integrated in their production equipment in order to be able to provide video footage to all of our viewers, on mobile devices, PC tablets, the web and connected TV".

NETIA is selected for its ability to integrate and personalize the solution

In early 2009, l'Equipe 24/24 checked the market for the various systems to be integrated: digitization, archiving, editing/production and broadcasting. "For the archive management part, we were seeking a solution which would enable us to search and view an archive from any workstation", explained Christophe Berthier.

"We compared models of the solutions proposed by five publishers before selecting NETIA's content management solution. This featured current state-of-the-art technology, guaranteeing the simple integration of the tool within our workflow.

Furthermore, its flexibility and customizability met one of our key criteria: offering our archivists an interface incorporating the existing functions while at the same time benefiting from the latest technological advances available on the market. By retaining their existing and familiar interface, we hoped to help them adopt the new solution more quickly, despite the profound changes taking place in their work.

Two other distinguishing points confirmed our choice of NETIA: a genuine willingness to listen to our staff at all levels, whether technical or commercial, and finally their behavior as a collaborative partner rather than as a simple supplier".

L'Equipe 24/24 then took four months to deploy its new integrated multimedia system. On its Claret site in the Montpellier hinterland, NETIA marshaled its forces in order to produce an almost life-size prototype of the multimedia production workflow, incorporating the selected application bricks: NETIA's MAM solution (Media Asset Management), the Enterprise sQ production system from Quantel and the MBT broadcasting system (Media & Broadcast Technologies).

More independence for journalists, for more relevant information round the clock

"Throughout this project, we appreciated NETIA's "partnership-focused" attitude, based on a genuine willingness to exchange experiences. In our company, it's our expertise in our business and its specific aspects that make l'Equipe 24/24 so effective, while for them, it was technological expertise and tools", stressed Christophe Berthier. "This collaborative partnership has enabled us to benefit from a tailored response to every task-specific requirement, with a high level of responsiveness".

Since June 2009, the workflow has been up and running for the seven archivists and all of the journalists. The "Before and After" situation is particularly striking. "Journalists today are more independent, and carry out editing tasks as an integral part of the process" (please see the panel[T1]), says Christophe Berthier. "Since access to the archives is no longer a production barrier, they can easily be used to add greater depth and breadth to subjects and to document them, i.e. to enhance their quality and relevance, for the great satisfaction of millions of viewers on L'Equipe TV".

Rights management has also been virtualized: NETIA's software solution immediately informs the journalist by means of a color code if the document he wishes to use is ready to broadcast and whether or not it is free of rights, enabling him to save time later when he needs to obtain such information. Via the workflow, he can also enrich the new digitized documentary archive with clips which have just been filmed, in order to share them.

A richer, monitored and better used documentary archive can be a source of cost reductions

The day-to-day work of archivists has also radically changed: no more time is lost indexing archives upstream. The digitization tool makes it possible to include metadata for each clip, metadata which NETIA's content management system (MAM) is able to use.

"This is one of the key features of the solution", stressed Christophe Berthier: "the reading of metadata makes it possible to quickly identify where a document is located at a given moment (i.e. in the archives or being used by a postproduction platform) and to inform the user of this status. The same metadata is updated at the time of each use, thereby guaranteeing traceability in the use of clips and the tracking of their life cycles".

The time savings generated thanks to indexing and documentary search are used to really get the most from the documentary collection and to promote the archives. And how is this achieved? According to the events which the journalist will be covering in the weeks to come (the European cup football match, or the world swimming championships, etc.) the archivists highlight the most interesting archives.

As a result, their contribution has far more added value than before. "Promoting the documentary archives enables us to be better able to capitalize on what already belongs to us. More extensive and better used, our documentary archive is no longer a 'sleeping asset'. Its use is more measured today and the documentation department has now become a key player in managing the company's costs".

To round off, Christophe Berthier adds with more than a hint of pride: "our workflow generates enthusiasm in our marketing department and delights our shareholders. The progress towards the Rich Media which it creates, by enabling us to convert video, text and photos, our three key skills, has already attracted curious and interested visitors from major French and foreign media groups !"

A synchronized production line for continuous editing

Before, when a journalist wanted to incorporate archive footage while editing a subject, he would submit a request to the documentation department. An archivist would then search for the item in a huge index file, find the physical location of the corresponding cassette, and then view it in order to extract the clip requested by the journalist. This process could take half an hour to an hour.

Today, each workstation in the new multimedia editorial room has two synchronized screens: on the first screen, the journalist edits his subject. Thanks to the second screen, he can then access the archives using multiple search criteria, view the clips in low resolution, put them in a "shopping basket" and forward the most suitable clips to his editing system. The whole process takes just a few minutes. And on his editing screen the archived clip has been automatically inserted in the subject underway.

L'Equipe 24/24 in brief

As part of the L'Equipe press subsidiary of the Amaury group, L'Equipe 24/24 (which was created following the merger of the 2 former subsidiaries L'Equipe TV and L'Equipe.fr), handles the management of new media for the television channel L'Equipe TV (10% of the L'Equipe group's turnover), for the L'Equipe.fr website and for the digital radio station RTL-L'Equipe.

Its task is to pass on continuous sports information over the web, but also on TV and mobile devices. Its goal is the exhaustive and reliable coverage of sports news, regardless of the medium concerned, and increased coverage of the core subjects for its various media.

Before & After: the extra square meters make all the difference

By moving, thanks to NETIA software, from a traditional method of managing tape-based media to an innovative file-based workflow, l'Equipe 24/24 has just reduced the square meters needed for its archives: a room measuring 8 sqm previously required to store 12 years of archives (i.e. 11,000 stacked cassettes) can now be replaced by a storage facility the size of a large suitcase, namely the upgradeable NAS Isilon acquired for the project.