Universal content production - More bang for the byte

The broadcasting and film-making industries are fragmenting in one sense yet uniting in another Broadcasting is separating into content creators versus content distributors, while the film industry is embracing a new mix of traditional photo-chemical and cutting-edge digital. The driving forces? Content creators want to sell the same content to as many buyers as possible; content distributors want to be paid to transport content in any format. Significant economic benefits will accrue through reduced duplication of work and streamlined workflows in this realignment. Disparate technologies, standards and practices used to obstruct these desires. Now broadcasters are taking steps to make content more universal (metadata, MXF, etc.) and film-makers are adopting the "digital intermediate" approach to make single-inventory masters for theatrical, broadcast and packaged distribution.