A Common Information Structure for Broadcast Applications

Abstract

This paper defines an integrated data structure supporting the management of events, material, media, and playback resources. The structure supports any number of levels of abstraction for dealing with the complexities of modern broadcast, editing, and newsroom applications. The structure separates the compositional aspects of broadcast operations (the pieces that make up a program or story) from the representational aspects (the material that manifests the specified compositional pieces). As such, it differs significantly from other industry attempts to provide a unified data structure' that does not separate the programmatic intent from the actual material that implements that intent. The data structure is a simple, two-level information structure where the levels are similar to each other, creating a recursive structure for operating within the commonly accepted abstractions of the industry such as rundown, event, story, program, pod, schedule, and channel as well as new abstractions that meet the needs of an increasingly complex industry. Sequencing constraints may be applied to elements in a time-independent manner. In addition, this two-level recursive structure is independently applied to both the compositional and representational aspects, supporting a rich expressiveness for planning, operating, and reporting the actions of a complete broadcast operation.