Timeline TV – the people behind Downton Abbey and Sky Sports’ darts coverage – will present influential techniques in tapeless technology at TVBEurope’s Fast Turnaround TV conference 2012, on 13 March. The tapeless workflow specialist plans to reveal how practices used in sports production can be applied to more general programming such as news and documentaries, with addresses from both its commercial director Stephen Davis and managing director Dan McDonnell. Embraced many years before other types of production, tapeless technology in sport has made inroads for the tapeless method. At the conference, which will be keynoted by ITV’s strategy director, Timeline aim to emphasise how workflow and media management can result in maximum efficiency without compromising creativity. “We’re applying the basic principles of sports production to general programming that needs to be high quality and fast turnaround,” said Stephen Davis (right in picture). “We’re used to higher stress levels in sports production, and we’re able to bring the same level of energy,” along with considerable expertise in server-based productions – Timeline was set up to provide EVS systems for sports and has “delivered the biggest EVS solutions outside of EVS,” added Davis. Timeline’s new multichannel playout centre, set up for Racing UK, goes on air from Ealing Studios, west London, on 28 February – and is claimed to be a model of the efficiency that can be gained from going tapeless, particularly using the IPDirector database (Timeline claims to be Europe’s leading supplier of IPDirector implementations). Since setting up in 2006, the company has expanded from providing tapeless server systems for outside broadcasts to flyaway production units, RF and comms, as well as setting up post facilities in central and west London – with a third facility opening at MediaCity UK in April. A full report on Timeline’s workflows, its new production and playout centre, and its work on such programmes as ITV’s hit drama series Downton Abbey and Sky Sport’s darts coverage, will be in the March issue of TVBEurope. www.fastturnaroundtv.comwww.timeline.tv
