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Mike Whittaker of Showtime cautions that unless facilities are fully aware of the potential of digital broadcast technologies, they cannot maximise its potential.

Making the transition to digital brings with it many challenges. Carolyn Heinze speaks to three Middle East players on how they have potentially addressed this issue in their facilities.

While the ideal may be starting out with a clean slate - going all digital, all at once - the reality, for many studios, is that the digital transition must be phased in as budgets allow.

The upside is that this enables personnel to gradually become accustomed to new systems and processes. However, it requires a detailed examination of current practices, and how they will change or overlap with more modern technologies as they are brought on board.

"You can phase it in," confirms Mike Whittaker, vice president of broadcast operations and technology at Showtime Arabia in Dubai. Showtime, he says, operates in a tapeless environment. However, it has only recently begun experimenting with tapeless technologies for original production. "You might be tapeless from the point of acquisition to ingest. Or, you could be completely tapeless for your acquisition and edits, but your playout can still be tape."

Smaller organisations might be able to get away with making a complete digital conversion all at once, while larger networks - especially those conducting a large amount of original production - can phase digital in on a show-by-show basis, or department-by-department. However, if you are making the transmission to tapeless tomorrow, then everyone needs to be in line.

Before taking action, facilities must understand what digital broadcast technologies are capable of, Whittaker cautions. This would seem obvious to most people. However this is an area where some organisations fail.

It's with this knowledge that facilities can properly decide how editing, compliance, and formatting for editing, archiving and transmission will be affected. This migration, however, isn't just about the technology; just as the equipment must be converted to digital, so, too, must the broadcast personnel.

"It changes the way a producer works with an editor and how you use an edit suite," Whittaker says, noting that anyone with a PC and some software training can manipulate content.

While new recruits adopt this mindset with relative ease, those accustomed to working in a traditional a tape-based setup may have more trouble taking on duties that were handled by others before. With digital software, he notes, producers can perform a lot of the editing - a task that, in the past, was the editor's job. This certainly streamlines the process, and enables skilled editors to focus on more intricate work.

"They're not out there cleaning up files; they can spend more time on their craft," explains Whittaker.

To assist his personnel in Showtime's digital migration, Whittaker presented new technologies as an enabler, rather than a collection of neat gadgets - a philosophy that those who are having difficulty accepting the changes find easier to swallow.

The focal point when moving to digital is workflow. Whittaker points out that this is a prime opportunity to improve upon - or completely do away with - existing practices.

"When you've got in mind what the technology is capable of, you need to think about your workflow. Lots of practices have grown up within organisations that might be optimum or even a sub-optimum workflow to take. You don't want to digitise that workflow, because you won't see any of the gains," cautions Whittaker.

Kalyan Acharya, director of broadcast operations at City 7 TV, a Dubai-based English-language channel, advises that facilities appoint a group of people dedicated to overseeing and managing the transition.

"The focus is very clearly not to hamper the existing workflow, but to intelligently retain a large part of the machinery, order the right kind of cross-platform mix, and gradually phase in the digital workflow. If enough care is not taken to make the transition, there are chances - and there have been instances - where facilities end up endangering the existing workflow, or invest in solutions and then worry what to do with them," explains Acharya.

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