MUPPITS M ultiple U sers for P ost P roduction IT S ervices

1. MUPPITSMultiple Users for Post Production ITServices DTG, IT Innovation, BBC, Ovation Data Services, Smoke & Mirrors, Molinare, Pinewood Studios Group, SohoNet, HDDC

2. Muppits Origin • Circa 2002 MPC London Installed a 1 Megawatt Substation in Wardour Street Soho • Within 3 years overloaded • Original Project concept was to delgate rendering and storage both in and out of town creating a marketplace for resources • 2008 Muppits project created with support from the UK government

3. Rendering Scene is rendered using a multi-processor render ‘farm’ MUPPITS IN CONFIDENCE

4. Problem Statement: • UK Post production houses have to keep buying hardware & software to address their peakrequirements • Means that most of the time they are not earning their keep • At peak times there is still never enough • UK talent is hampered by the high cost of post production hardware and software • Some potential users are completely excluded because they cannot afford the entry cost • This is all leading to a growing demand for outsourced services in the media industry • File-based workflow has introduced new, or exacerbated existing, problems: • How to capture and manage content • Tracking of content (where is it? who did what to it?) • Retaining ownership (files can be distributed easily) • Storage and indexing of content on disks • Many tasks are labour-intensive and tedious MUPPITS IN CONFIDENCE

5. Partners 5

6. Demo Roll

8. Muppits Offers • SECURITY • MANAGEMENT • SERVICE CONTROL • COLLABORATION • AUTOMATION • MARKETPLACE • Over the whole production lifecycle • It facilitates workflow not dictates workflow • & Its non proprietary

9. Muppits Innovations • Determined and evaluated the concept of the Media Services Marketplace • Enables participants to trade media services • Infrastructure comprising business, technical and commercial aspects • Detailed investigation into how to create and offer a MUPPITS media service • Find out how the marketplace will work in action • Render time & cost estimation • How long will the processing of a 3D CGI render take? • Before MUPPITS all we had was guesswork • Now we can predict render time & cost with good accuracy • High-end video capture • Data management, processing & collaboration • Viewingcontent, sharingcontent with others, movingcontent, processing content • Automated processing • Metadata-based tracking • Location and processing status of media • Provenance of media MUPPITS IN CONFIDENCE

10. Muppits Core • Multiple Data warehouse capability • GRIA Services oriented architecture from industry http://www.gria.org/ • Rule Engine facilitating the generation of custom production specific Service level agreements and workflows • Resource tracking to facilitate direct production budget control and billing

11. SOA • It regards everything you do to your media as SERVICES • It allows productions to choose the SERVICES they want • And whoever they want to provide these SERVICES from whatever location they need • This is called Service Oriented Architecture or SOA which is a phrase you may have heard about recently

12. MUPPITS Data Warehouse Facility A Facility B Production company MUPPITS System Facility C Client Data Storage MUPPITS IN CONFIDENCE

13. MUPPITS Media Marketplace Buy Services Buy Services Sell Services Sell Services Buy Services Buy Services Sell Services Buy Services Buy Services Buy Services Sell Services Collaborate MUPPITS IN CONFIDENCE

14. Project Concentration Rendering as a service The Project developed an accurate render time and resource estimator Tapeless Production The project in conjunction with the BBC Ingex team developed an automated tapeless workflow

15. Render as a Service • Demonstration of the MUPPITS Marketplace in action • In-depth investigation into “how to create and consume a MUPPITS service” • Video rendering is a good case study • Demanding on hardware • Expensive software • Extra resource needed at time-critical moments • Many occasions when there is spare capacity MUPPITS IN CONFIDENCE

16. Tapeless Production MUPPITS demonstrated semi automated workflow between the BBC, Molinare, Smoke and Mirrors and Pinewood studio’s MUPPITS integrated Ingex which is used on East Enders and Dragons Den for multi-channel recording Ingex info can be found at http://ingex.sourceforge.net/

17. Summary of MUPPITS Benefits • MUPPITS creates the Digital Marketplace for Media Services • Set up trusted trade partnerships with SOA’s • Geographic location unimportant • Put power intensive functions where they belong. Dinorwig not Dean Street • Transparently interface with Clouds • Rent resources rather than buying them • Users can rent in extra resource when they need it • Resource owners can rent out their spare capacity • Savings on electricity, maintenance and capital investment and real estate in central and greater London MUPPITS IN CONFIDENCE

18. Summary of MUPPITS Benefits Provides business opportunity Enables dedicated specialist providers to set up services and sell them Small outfits can use high performance computing and high-end software that they previously could not afford Provides the ability to test run new business areas Lowers barriers of entry to creative organisations No asset purchase Pay for resources for as long as needed, no longer Infrastructure provides business management (accounting, billing) available as a service Remote working is enabled by MUPPITS so people can work from outlying areas or hotel rooms

19. MUPPITSMultiple Users for Post Production ITServices DTG, IT Innovation, BBC, Ovation Data Services, Smoke & Mirrors, Molinare, Pinewood Studios Group, SohoNet, HDDC