The Media and Entertainment (M&E) industry include conventional media services like newspaper, television and radio. New type of media services cover online, mobile, networking sites and other interactive media. Entertainment includes gaming, animation, music and movies.

The biggest media and entertainment markets are the United States of America, Japan and Germany. Digital Media is growing at a very fast pace. It grew by 10% during the recession while spending on non-digital media reduced by 6%.The total value of M & E industry will increase to $1.7 trillion in 2014 which is far more than that in 2009 i.e. $1.3 trillion. The access of new forms of media like wired and mobile internet rose up by 8% in 2009.

Due to advances in technology and an increased focus on convergence of television, telecom and the Internet,Media and Entertainment industry has undergone several changes in business models. These changes have given rise to both business and technological changes. In the year 2009, M&E industry passed through a tough phase the challenging economic state affected advertisement revenues. However, the subscription revenues kept growing. Media Industrialists looked at sustainable cost optimization and hunted means to enhance their connectivity with their customers. The unused potential for growth in media reach, better consumer understanding, impact of digitization, sustained efforts in innovation, and better penetration of regional markets increased the conditions of the industry.

Characteristics of Media and Entertainment Industry

The Media and Entertainment Industry has the following characteristics:

· Content Asset

· Intellectual property rights

· Customer Relationship management

· Real time revenue management

· Managing Infrastructure cost

· Production cost

Challenges faced by Media and Entertainment Industry

· Keep rate with the latest IT innovations and modern industry practices

· Increasing Competition

· Content Regulation

· Piracy

· Manage relationship with customers

· Handle financial and logistic aspects

· Step up the digital content

· Enable wrapping of media for delivery to distribution channels

· Maximize Ad revenue

· Innovate new business models

· Lower risk and reduce cost

WHAT IS PRODUCTION & MANUFACTURING OF MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY?

Media Industry produces a variety of products such as newspapers, television and radio channels.The entertainment industry is associated with the creation of games,films,songs,etc

The digital production process involves a series of tasks that can only be completed through the use of digitized,unlike, disconnected systems. There are many manual processes to transmit content and its linked paperwork throughout each stage of the production process-even when working with digital files-which leads to inefficient workflows. As screening and film companies analyze their processes and systems, a unique op­portunity emerges to make use of IT(digital) products and technologies and refresh their systems and workflows.

Need for an information system to manage production

Stay competitive

Streamline costs

Deliver new services

Realize new revenue

Gain market share

Meet con­sumer demands.

To accomplish these goals, film and broadcasting companies are making a transition from analog to digital content. It is a move that is also forcing these companies to re-examine their workflow processes and systems for better productivity and management. The new Management Systems should provide a single easy-to-use interface for all actions being executed on both physical and digital assetsto facilitate faster, better quality media asset management, order administration, client service, billing and financial planning.The production management system should permit the content creators to integrate their individual systems to form a complete supply chain in a cost effective way.

In order to manage production,the information systems can be of various types such as systems to assist editing,recording,managing finances,dates scheduling,etc.

TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX ENTERTAINMENT GROUP-AN INRODUCTION

Twentieth Century Fox Entertainment Group also known as 20th Century Fox is among the six major film studios of American as of 2010. It was founded in 1935  Its headquarters are located in the Century City area of Los Angeles, just west of Beverly Hills.The studio is a subsidiary of the media giant News Corporation which is owned by Rupert Murdoch.

Fox Film Entertainment is a worldwide leader in movie production and distribution. Twentieth Century Fox has produced some of the top grossing movies of all time like Avatar and Titanic.

Beside producing movies,20th century fox produce and distribute few of the world’s most admired television series under the sign of Twentieth Century Fox Television. The Company’s TV studios focus in animated series and broadcast many of the most famous t.v. series to the major U.S. networks.

The company ventured into the music business in the year 2000.The subsidiary which produces music is known as Fox Music.It encompasses publishing of music and granting licenses.

Fox Entertainment Group’s all time hit movie is Avatar, which is also the highest grosser of all times. Microsoft helped in the production of this blockbuster by providing their software Rich Media Collaboration Services. This software is used for various prospects starting from preparing budgets till the completion of the movie.

MICROSOFT’S RICH MEDIA COLLABORATION SERVICES

Industry-Media & Entertainment Industry

Client-20th Century Fox Entertainment

Vendor-Microsoft Corporation

Software-Rich Media Collaboration Services

Rich Media Collaboration Services(RMCS) provides a stage for fully integrated alliance of documents and rich media content.Acoording to David Alstadter, the Managing Director of the Microsoft Worldwide Media & Entertainment Group, by using Rich Media Collaboration Services, broadcast and film companies can improve workflow efficiencies and save cost by creating a common-shared workspace for documents, audio and video content. These companies can also build a control panel for production, sales, and operations executives, which provides a real-time project play out and usage data about audio and video content.

Why Microsoft Rich Media Collaboration Services ?

It enabled the company to extend col­laborative workflow processes ahead of the tradi­tional document scenarios and into scenarios that involve digital rich media content. It is the main collaborator user interface for the content creation process and is accessible across multiple divisions, including business, finance, pre-production, production, post-production, and completion processes.

Rich Media Collaboration Services pro­vide a collaboration layer on top of existing business and production systems. With the help of Web services, this system provide an abstraction layer into the back-end production systems, like Digital Asset Management, Digital Rights Management, Schedul­ing, Transcoding and Distribution along with other business systems. It also allows customers to build on and extend out-of-the-box Web parts to communicate with other systems.

How is the System made:

Rich Media Collaboration Services is built using Resource Description Framework (RDF).RDF is an XML-based layout for describing resources.RMCS also implements existing industry standards for audio content such as MPEG-21 Digital Item Identification and MPEG-21 Digital Item Declaration Language.RMCS utilizes software like Connected Services Framework, Office SharePoint Server 2007, Office InfoPath 2007, Windows Workflow Foundation, Business Scorecard Manager, and SQL Server 2005.

Rich Media Collaboration Services also make use of Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, which is a development tech­nique used to create interactive Web applica­tions. This system also provides the cross-browser support, allowing it to make use of Windows Internet Explorer 7 Internet browser, Mozilla FireFox, and Safari on the Macintosh.

Rich Media Collaboration Services Toolset

Tool

Description

Ingest Tool

It enables intake of media clips from digital cameras,camcorders, laptops, and other hardware into a Digital Asset Management system. After the asset is uploaded, a workflow is started using Windows Workflow Foundation which utilizes an InfoPath 2007 form to collect metadata about the asset. After the InfoPath 2007 form has been submitted, the asset is assigned to the required project folder in the DAM system for display using the Media Library.

Media Library

All the media clips that has been organized into project folders and uploaded into the DAM system by a content creator is contained in the media library. It also enables the achievement of multiple tasks when accessing a media clip through the Media Library, for example editing metadata associ­ated with a clip, interpreting, viewing and adding a clip to a rough cut editor. The tasks can be customized and extended to meet the individual needs of each media or entertainment company.

Animation Tool

Enables explanation of required portions of a chosen asset. Anyone with permission can see these notes when they access the clip because they are saved with the asset. In addition to this, written explanations on specific frames within video assets can be made.

Rough Cut Editor

Permits creation of rough cut video or film segments by uniting several clips into a timeline and adding notes about spe­cific frames or time codes. This rough cut is exported to an Edit Decision List.

Media Player

By using either Quicktime Player or Windows Media player, complete asset can be directly viewed using rich media collaboration interface. Content creators will be able to view time codes as they view an asset, and step forward/back­ward buttons will be available when the clip is paused to allow sophisticated media navigation.

Report Dashboard

Reports containing production information such as time required to pass information from one system to another,asset usage information,time required to complete the editing process,etc can be viewed.A centralized location to view such reports is provided by the Business Scorecard Manager.

Summary

Rich Media Collaboration Services is a new service solution that provides the additional support and functionality that film and broadcasting compa­nies need to flourish in the digital world.

Connected Services Framework enables broadcast and film com­panies to rationalize the creation, manage­ment, and delivery of digital content while combining business systems and analytics.

It also enables them to create and capture new income prospects, manage project and budgets more proficiently, and empower their people to be more creative. It gives, content creators a widespread toolset of custom Web parts to facilitate and pace up the production process.

This system is the main collaboration user interface for the substance creation process and is accessible across several divisions, including finance, business, pre-production, production, post-production, and completion.

APPENDIX

Rich Media Collaboration Services User Interface

Rich Media Collaboration Services and Connected Services Framework,working together

To accomplish these goals, film and broadcasting companies are making a transition from analog to digital content. It is a move that is also forcing these companies to re-examine their workflow processes and systems for better productivity and management. The new Management Systems should provide a single easy-to-use interface for all actions being executed on both physical and digital assets to facilitate faster, better quality media asset management, order administration, client service, billing and financial planning. The production management system should permit the content creators to integrate their individual systems to form a complete supply chain in a cost effective way.

In order to manage production, the information systems can be of various types such as systems to assist editing, recording, managing finances, dates scheduling,etc.

To accomplish these goals, film and broadcasting companies are making a transition from analog to digital content. It is a move that is also forcing these companies to re-examine their workflow processes and systems for better productivity and management. The new Management Systems should provide a single easy-to-use interface for all actions being executed on both physical and digital assets to facilitate faster, better quality media asset management, order administration, client service, billing and financial planning. The production management system should permit the content creators to integrate their individual systems to form a complete supply chain in a cost effective way.

In order to manage production, the information systems can be of various types such as systems to assist editing, recording, managing finances, dates scheduling,etc.