When organizations use the term ‘revolutionary’ to describe a concept, I find that it’s normally a pretty good cue to turn off and move on to the next thing. Usually, puffed up descriptions conceal a flaky or fundamentally compromised proposition. The first thing I can tell you about the Digital Production Partnership (DPP) is that it is not snake oil:

Efficient & cost-effective

DPP is a real life platform that offers the potential for broadcasters and facilities of all types to revolutionize their production workflows.

It enables organizations to adopt digital file-based workflows in ways that are both efficient and cost effective. It enables organizations to adopt file-based technologies for intra- and inter-company media transfers. It finally consigns the ‘sneaker-net’ to the rubbish heap of history.

An industry funded initiative


So, the next big question is who is behind DPP – is it the brainchild of some multi-national corporation, developed to encourage broadcasters to buy more kit? No, just the opposite. DPP is an initiative formed by the UK’s public service broadcasters to help producers and broadcasters maximise the benefits of digital production. The partnership is funded by BBC, ITV and Channel 4, with representation from Channel 5, Sky, S4C and the independent sector on its working groups. DPP draws on industry experts from the worlds of technology and broadcast production to help fulfil its remit.

Building on success of Media Exchange Format (MXF)


Today, is unique. It has taken all the hard work it took to create the SMPTE MXF specification nearly 10 years ago and developed a set of Application Specifications for the UK industry that transform this technical standard into a real world business platform. Looking at it from an international perspective, DPP is the first of these Application Specifications to receive national scale adoption. I’m pretty certain that it won’t be the last.

DPP is already a winner


DPP has been successful in establishing a road map in digital production in the UK. It provides a framework that enables the UK industry to come together and share best practice in digital production and help producers and broadcasters maximize the potential of the digital revolution. Also, it leads the standardization of technical and metadata requirements within the UK, helping to ensure digital video content can be easily and cost-effectively distributed to audiences via multiple platforms.

Strong Vendor support

DPP is supported by many of the leading broadcast technology vendors. At a recent DPP Vendor Day, I counted 13 manufacturers present in the room – all co-operating to develop a harmonized digital file-based working environment. At AmberFin, we’re proud to say that we are at the leading edge of this cross industry co-operation. Already, we have introduced a family of new DPP compliant media ingest, media transcode, playback and quality control products that will, for the first time, provide broadcasters and content owners with efficient, targeted and cost-effective production tools.

At AmberFin, we whole-heartedly support the DPP initiative here in the UK. We believe it has the ability to transform the UK broadcast industry. Furthermore, we believe it provides a blueprint that could be easily adopted in many other international markets. If you’re not up to speed on DPP, then I recommend having a good read of our white paper and then checking out the DPP websire (url is in the white paper).