Flexible end-to-end solution for customers with a need to review and process files from their video archives

When 16:9 video was introduced as anamorphic PAL (and NTSC), video servers that have been used for ingesting from tape or recording of live feeds have not been prepared for this new situation. They’ve simply ignored any aspect ratio or wide screen signaling within the SDI signal. As a consequence, they have not written any aspect ratio information into the file headers.

Today, years later, many early adaptors have been building up huge archives of wrongly flagged video files. Most often, the content recording happened within MXF-wrapped files. Within such files, the aspect ratio is stored as metadata within the MXF essence header and within the MPEG-2 video stream.
As the 16:9 aspect ratio information was not stored at any place, there is no simple technical way to detect it and restore it to all relevant locations within a video file.

x-dream-media has developed a flexible end-to-end solution for customers with a need to review and process files. One use case is the correction of video archives. x-dream-media’s Workflow Manager is used for retrieving the files from the archive, for the correction and for the re-check-in into the archive. A simple web browser based graphical user interface displays one after the other video file from the archive to the human operator and requests just one action: The decision 16:9 or 4:3. Depending on the infrastructure in place, the operator can review the original MXF file or a proxy video. In case no proxy video is available within the archive, the Workflow Manager will have a transcoder preparing a short sequence from the original file in question.

The heart of the solution is x-dream-media's Workflow Manager together with x-dream-media's MXF video file player for any web browser. The Workflow Manager can drive either x-dream-media’s MXF correction tools or third-party products.